Both/And thinking [the opposite of either/or thinking] recognizes the folly of assuming that the new will totally supplant the old. Seeing with Both/And eyes recognizes that two opposite realities can be integrated. Adapted from Daniel Burrus at Burrus Research Today’s repost is certainly one worth sharing again! Today marks two months and two weeks since […]
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What does hope look like for me now?
Image by precious widbud Charlotte MacNaughton – Yellowknife, Canada’s Northwest Territories (Jan 2023) Way back when, back in my life before, and soon after I had started up my business, Kaleidoscope Development, I wrote a blogpost on “Hope”. It was 21st April 2014. I actually called it, “Hope – Part One”, and a week later, […]
Cheering On Our Team
Yesterday was a big day for my city. In two weeks, my beloved Chiefs are headed back to the biggest football game. Like the week before, I gathered with my neighborhood crew to watch the game. If you didn’t watch, the game was a nailbiter. In the end, our team pulled through and across town […]
Old Dreams, New Dreams
Yesterday I met up for coffee with someone who may very well be a colleague as a fellow grief-counselor, to ask her some questions about doing this work and all the tiny details involved. We sat there, two strangers both affected and changed by loss in completely different ways (she is a Buddhist, a minister, […]
Getting Back
One of the biggest challenges of adjusting to life as a widow is trying to hold on to the memory of the life you had as part of a long-time couple while trying to remember the “Me” before “We”. In my case, recalling the latter is tied closely to the former. Last week I started […]
Joshua Tree
This month I embarked on a solo trip for fun to Los Angeles and Palm Springs. I have done this once before. In 2019, before I started my Ph.D. program I went to Puerto Rico by myself. It was freeing and exciting, but there were lonely parts and times when I wished I had someone […]
On the Road
I had intended to publish last Thursday, as usual, but then experienced technical issues. Such are the vagaries of being off on the road. As you can see, I’m back online today and anxious to make up for lost time. *** After a wonderful extended visit with Robyn, we went our separate ways before dawn […]
Inspiration from
The Widow Clicquot Who was 4 and a half feet tall with light colored hair and grey eyes and stormed the champagne industry during the French Revolution? That’s right! Barbe-Nicole: The Lady Herself Barbe-Nicole was widowed in 1805, at the age of 23. Women of that time were not allowed to run a business, but […]
Violent Dreams to Usher In the Year of the Rabbit
Image by Gary Bendig on Unsplash I have woken late this morning – almost 9 am – very late for me. But I have been drifting in and out of sleep for the past few hours – since before 6 am. I no longer remember what dream woke me before 6, but it was a […]
Greek Tragedy
Losing Tony hasn’t really made me question who I am as a person, but it has made me question how I should spend my time. As a couple, we each participated in activities that the other person wouldn’t sign up for alone. I’ve been to NASCAR races, BBQ contests, and attempted to fish. None of […]
“Second Chapter” and other Widowed Vocabulary
So, much like other groups of people who are sharing a similar life experience, the widowed community at times has a language of its own when talking with each other. Some of this vocabulary has developed naturally over time and then spread through the community, and some of it was created or started by someone […]
Powering Through
In the spring of 2014, I was diagnosed with a thyroid disease called Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis. My doctor proclaimed it was the worst case he’d ever seen and classified my case as Myxedema, another term for severely advanced hypothyroidism, a condition that occurs when your body doesn’t produce enough thyroid hormone. As January is Thyroid Awareness […]