compassion

Are You Phosphorescent?

Are You Phosphorescent?

Every quarter I contribute an essay to Elan Vitae Magazine. For Spring 2024, I wrote an essay entitled “Phosphorescent,” which was inspired by my March 2024 blog. (If you are curious, you can read that HERE.)

Every issue has a theme, and the Spring 2024 theme is Light. I love to create some contstraint when writing—these guardrails give you a place to start—but when I first thought about Light as a starting place, it confounded me. There were so many ways I could go with this essay—not much constraint there!

Allowing Space for Discomfort When Your Only Child Leaves for College

Allowing Space for Discomfort When Your Only Child Leaves for College

When I think about what is rising inside of me during this season, I can’t help but look at the proverbial elephant in the room – a paradox of emotions slinking beneath the surface of my everyday, dangerously close to coming into full display with the departure of my daughter to college. I am exceedingly excited for her and all the opportunities and experiences in front of her. I am incredibly proud of her determination and perseverance. I am eager for her to experience the joy of independence, self-sufficiency, and finding purpose and passion in her educational pursuits. I want her to find contentment and peace in her every day and experience the full range of what life offers, and that includes the highs and the lows and all of the nuance in between. At the same time, I want to shield her from the disappointment, sadness, grief, and pain that will undoubtedly show up in that spectrum of experiences on her journey. Holding all of it together – yep, the definition of paradox.

How Do You Create a Sense of Safeness for Yourself?

How Do You Create a Sense of Safeness for Yourself?

When we feel safe enough, we are able to create with abandon – in whatever form that takes. For me, that is writing, but also other creative practices: art-making, coaching, singing, or anything else where I am leaning on my creativity – you pick your preferred mode of creation! If we don’t feel safe or comfortable enough, we find ourselves using all of our energy just to survive.

Committed to Comfort

Committed to Comfort

I live in Ohio. As such, the coming of Spring feels momentous and inspiring. January and February are a gray and gloomy duo for the most part. We vacillate from bitter cold – the kind that mercilessly cuts through your parka (yes, the thick and bulky one) – to steely skies that, while not bitter, surely aren’t warming. As I think about the Januarys and Februarys throughout my life, I often picture myself trudging through them while simultaneously trying to hygge up my space, bringing some comfort and cozy to my inner and outer landscape. And don’t get me wrong, I live by the seasons and enjoy the freedom I find within myself while I navigate them; however, as we gingerly approach each new season, I find myself ready for the shift. 

For the Love of Letters

For the Love of Letters

…A couple of years ago, we found letters, though. Letter after letter dating back to the 1930s, some barely legible and faded after years of being stored in a shoebox. Letters from my grandfather to my grandmother which explored his deep and abiding love for her. These letters were stunningly expressive, heartfelt, deep explorations of love.

What My Run Reminded Me About My Writing Practice

What My Run Reminded Me About My Writing Practice

If there is one activity that brings on my creativity and inspiration it is walking. I am a walker. Nature soothes my soul and allows me to access inner safeness in a world that feels chaotic and overwhelming at times. I like to walk alone. I like to walk with my dog. I like to walk with friends and family occasionally, but mostly it’s just me on my walks and all of my parts that need some soothing.

How Did NaNoWriMo Work for You?

How Did NaNoWriMo Work for You?

November was National Novel Writing Month. I hear people start to talk about this in late October, “November is National Novel Writing Month! I’m going to do it this year! I’m going to write my book in November!”

Let’s be clear about something from the outset, here. I think NaNoWriMo is awesome. I think it inspires people to think big and imagine a world where they are writing daily and that vision seems exciting and sexy, and also a little scary. And if you sign up for NaNoWriMo on their website — if you look around a little before November 1 — you will see that the good people who birthed this idea intend a few things…

What Is It That I Am Feeling?

By Erica Sonnabend

Wow.  What a year it’s been.  

I feel like that statement is one we're all hearing now that we've marked a full year since a global pandemic came crashing into our lives, but it really is fitting.  

I certainly do not say these words lightly - quite the opposite, actually. The deep emotions behind that statement and what they represent are what strikes me the most when I hear that statement. There has never been a time in most of our lives that the whole world has experienced loss from the very same root cause.  

  

As the weeks of uncertainty turned into months, I witnessed a shift in the collective conversation in our society that gave me hope.  Initially, we were talking about the world shutting down, frightening case numbers, and lack of toilet paper, but then something else happened.  While we were still talking about those drastic changes in our daily lives, we also started talking about how those changes made us feel.  

  

Our conversations became a mix of both intellectual facts and the corresponding emotions that accompany them. Words such as mindfulness, awareness, wellbeing, compassion, and connection started popping up during nightly news reports, on social media, and in zoom calls all over the world.  We as humans were speaking our emotional truth like never before.  That truth was filled with all sorts of feelings - fear, sadness, longing, relief, gratitude, isolation, anger, desperation, love, etc.  People started discussing problems with sleeping, eating, working, feeling stuck, being disoriented, and connecting to joy as a result of the pandemic.   

  

Guess what all of those feelings are?  Yup...GRIEF.  Our usually “grief avoidant” society was experiencing loss in so many unprecedented ways that many of us started talking about our losses and our feelings instead of relying on the social norm of not really expressing our challenging emotions.  As someone who has discovered the many benefits of dealing with all of my emotions (those most often viewed as either positive or negative), this is such a welcome change.


By July of last year, I had many people (including news media) reaching out to my grief support practice to ask what grief actually is and how someone can tell if they are experiencing it.  To answer that question, I offered the definition of grief that completely changed my perspective on loss. 

"Grief is the conflicting feelings caused by the change in or the end of a familiar pattern of behavior."    - John W. James 

 

Why is this definition so important?

Personally, I walked around thinking something emotionally was wrong with me after experiencing the death of my father, the end of my marriage, changes in my health, and challenges in my career. I believed that once my dad had been gone for a year, I was supposed to magically feel better, but I did not.  I struggled to cling to what others told me about “being better off” when my marriage ended.  And let us not forget that “everything happens for a reason” platitude. Those sentiments were offered out of love for me which I appreciate; however, I was still stuck and stuffing my feelings down.

The problem was that outside of the death losses I had experienced, I didn’t consider that the other changes in my life were also losses. Consequently, the conflicting feelings I experienced didn’t make sense to me. I couldn’t understand why I continued to feel the way I did so I kept those feelings hidden.  I believed that loss was about death and that feelings of grief were reserved solely for that reason. 

Grief is certainly about death, but it is also about so much more.  It's about any change in your life that has deep emotional value to you. Only you can determine what those loss events in your life are and how you will integrate those losses into your future life. It is important that we realize that feelings of grief are not just limited to the date (or the year after) your loss occurred.  Loss and change can cause ripple effects throughout our lives in various ways.  Expressing the varied emotions that come up is absolutely essential.

As we moved through this past year, many of us came to realize that the definition of grief we'd been relating to for so long was too narrow.  So much that was familiar to us came to an abrupt end and the changes are too many to count. Recognizing that feelings of grief and loss are not limited to specific changes helps us to expand our conversations.  The figurative stop signs we used to encounter are replaced with open hearts and listening ears which leads us down a path toward healing.

There is much work ahead for us as we continue to battle this pandemic into year two. We will need to rely on each other and keep pushing to eradicate this public health crisis that has taken far too much.  The losses are many which means the need to connect to our emotional truth is greater than ever.  Let’s continue to shift our conversations about every aspect of our loss experiences by speaking our truth about how we feel when a “familiar pattern of behavior” changes or ends.  

Wow.  What a year indeed. 

Be well, friends.

Creating a Space for Grief as the Seasons Change

Creating a Space for Grief as the Seasons Change

Here I am stepping fully into the Fall season. The weather outside my door has turned to that familiar chill, the leaves have begun their transition to brightness and the moon is revealing more of itself with each night. The cozy feel of warmer clothes comfort me as I start preparing my family and my home for the change of season.