It wasn't the greatest day from the get-go. I was supposed to have spent the morning recording vocals for a track I've been collaborating on, but technical issues shut that project down before it even began. So I moved on to plan B, but was missing some of the ingredients I needed for that to be successful as well.  So I went to my office to do some cleanup while the husband made a frustrating trip to town for a few supplies that in normal times would be so simple.  But these days, nothing is simple. It's starting to wear on everyone I know.

So to end the day, a quick trip to our local general store for mail, groceries, and one lousy stamp.  But my timing was off, so I asked for the stamp about the same time as the postal computer shut things down.  So that task turned out to be a bust as well.  And I got snarly.  Not mad, not bitchy, not rude...just frustrated snarly. That is not my typical response, so  that happening brought my spirits down even lower. 

I came home, my not-great mood now well defined as bad.  It was 4:30 in the afternoon, and I just went to bed and curled up.  I felt bad that something as simple as a $1.07 stamp was the straw that broke me, and as I lay there feeling both bad and teary, I realized I was grieving. We are all grieving these days. Our world has been in a tailspin for months...and there's not really a true end in sight. And that creates more grief. As a Grief Recovery Specialist, how could I not have recognized the depth of what I was experiencing sooner?

WHAT IS GRIEF? There are two definitions we use are from The Grief Recovery Handbook.  First is that grief is the normal and natural reaction to loss. Second, grief is the conflicting feelings caused by the end of or change in a familiar pattern of behavior.

So many people equate grief with the death of a loved one, but there are over forty different experiences that can cause grief to reside within us. Give yourself just a moment to go through the list of grieving events below.  As you're going through that list, be conscious of just how very many of those things we have each experienced in the last fifteen months of this Covid Era.  

• Death of a spouse or partner
• Divorce
• Marital separation
• Imprisonment
• Death of a close family member
• Personal injury or illness
• Marriage
• Dismissal from work
• Marital reconciliation
• Retirement
• Change in health of family member
• Pregnancy
• Sexual difficulties
• Gain a new family member
• Business readjustment
• Change in a financial state
• Death of a close friend
• Change to a different line of work
• Change in frequency of arguments
• Major mortgage
• Foreclosure of mortgage or loan
• Change in responsibilities at work
• Child leaving home
• Trouble with in-laws
• Outstanding personal achievement
• Spouse starts or stops work
• Begin or end school
• Change in living conditions
• Revision of personal habits
• Trouble with boss
• Change in working hours or conditions
• Change in residence
• Change in schools
• Change in recreation
• Change in church activities
• Change in social activities
• Minor mortgage or loan
• Change in sleeping habits
• Change in number of family reunions
• Change in eating habits
• Vacation
• Christmas
• Minor violation of law
• Loss of Trust, Loss of Approval, Loss of Safety, and Loss of Control of my body

For myself (someone who has felt that many of the last year-plus of adjustments wasn't awful compared to so many others who are struggling), I look at the list and I can check of 19 situations that trigger the grief response. NINETEEN!! OUT OF FORTY!! And I am one of the very, very lucky ones!

This realization was really a wake-up call to what others are also going through and it's lead me to the realization that this is just the very beginning of what's to come.  Grief often doesn't even hit us the hardest until after the event, when we have the opportunity to step back and breathe again.  Suddenly we can find ourselves overwhelmed with feelings of sadness, anxiety, pain, and hopelessness.  

I hope knowing and understanding that, and for me remembering that, will help lighten the journey a little as we continue to edge our way towards the end of this period.  I hope that we can all be a little gentler on ourselves, and a little kinder to others as we realize the toll this time is having on everyone.  The only difference really is the degree of the effects being felt, but all of us are feeling the effects.  We need to find little ways to support and build each other's spirits until we can find bigger, more personal ways to do that.  

For a long time, with the last couple of years of moves and health issues, I was thinking of laying my role as a Grief Recovery Specialist to rest, but I expect that that skill will be more in demand in the months ahead than it was been at any time in my lifetime.  So with that, my doors will remain open.  I will continue to be a heart with ears to anyone that feels they need to go deeper into what they are experiencing and have some completion for the grief that they too are living with as a result of so much change to so many things we took to be normal. 

​We will get through this, and we will get through this together.  But I know it's going to take a concerted effort to move the world back to a place that feels more familiar to each of us.  Where we can regain a sense of safety, and of trust that what we know offers some stability. We'll get there, and we'll get there by being there for each other until we can be there with each other.   Better days are coming!

We are now over 14 months into this strange, new world that we are beginning to know as the Covid Era.  I keep trying to look for the pearls of wisdom, as well as the hidden gifts to be garnered from it.  I know there are several, and I have worked to appreciate each of them: the quiet time with family that was so absent in our busy, hectic lives, the chance to dig in, purge, and clear 'stuff' that time didn't allow for previously.  The home-cooked meals...although I could certainly live without the decisions of what to cook day in and day out and day in again.  There have been blessings for us, but I know there have been headaches and heartaches for so very, many people...and yes, for us as well.  

I've always lived my life as a 'glass have full' kind of girl, and believe that it has served me well over the years.  It's who I am as a product of my ancestry.  I doubt many of us would be here today if we didn't come from the bloodlines of people that believed there were always possibilities to push towards.  I am the dream of my grandparents, great grandparents, and all the generations that came before me, and I am so very lucky. 

But even that glass half full mentality has felt like it's wearing and thin of late.  I know we are so lucky that all the pandemic fallout hit at this stage of our lives where we are closer to the end than the beginning.  The years we've put in doing the work have left us reasonably secure. We don't have kids we are trying to home school because we have no choice.  We don't have jobs and businesses that we aren't sure will survive the constant changes to what is allowed and what is not.  We no longer have aging parents or my son with us to care for.  We do worry about our children, grandchildren, friends, and family...but it's not the hands-on, 'how do we get through this' kind of worry.  It's more a niggle at the back of the neck as the day goes on.  We are very fortunate.

But even I feel that I'm struggling through this.  The endless days of restricted options and lack of direction are wearing on me.  Nightly, I settle in and try to make a solid plan for 'what I am going to accomplish tomorrow', but so many of those plans do not materialize into anything that I can concretely say that I actually did do.  And for someone that has always kept pushing life forward, it's a strange and unsettling feeling. 

Last night, I decided that I needed to go back to my IOUs and focus on them more closely in the days ahead. I realized that is my responsibility at this moment in time.  Maybe that focus and intention will give me the direction I need to keep navigating these times in a positive and meaningful way that I can look back upon years from now and feel content with. 

My IOUs are very clear.  Music, Writing, Trust, Wisdom, and Creative.  I have done well with the 'Music' throughout this.  I happened to sign up for a sync songwriting course in August of 2019 and was building my tribe through that.  I will be honest in saying that that focus and tribe has really been what I have leaned on and drawn from day in and day out through much of this. Music brings me joy, and there hasn't been a day in these last many months that I haven't picked up the guitar, written something, practiced, or talked music with my circle.  That has been a blessing.  It touches upon my other IOUs as well.  However, I need to be more intentional about them.

With that, I know I need to get back to writing more again, so this is my attempt to start. My fight, as I'm certain many of you will understand, is that struggle with the 'imposter syndrome' that so many of us share.  I have this internal NEED to write, to document, to share.  I can't help it, it's part of who I am.  It's one of my IOUs, and with the months of sorting and purging that I've been doing, I've been reminded that it's been a force in my life for as long as my memory goes back.  Poems, little stories, songs, letters...write, write, write.  I need to get back to honoring that part of myself, and not worry about the 'what' I am going to write about.  I need to focus on the 'why' I need to do it.

My why is also wrapped up in the other IOUs...my trust that someone somewhere might benefit from my thoughts and sharing, the understanding that at sixty years old I have acquired a lifetime of knowledge and wisdom and that those things might ease another's journey...or they may jumpstart another's success as so much of what I did learn came about the hard way.  Maybe my jotting things down and putting them out into the world will save someone else from having to go through some of that. Or maybe it won't. I don't know. But if I don't put it out there, I never will. Heck, if I do put it out there, I likely never will!  But I'm like my Grandfather in many ways, planting his apple orchard, knowing that he'd likely never really enjoy the fruit of his labors, but always trusting that we would...just as we have for decades since that time.  Someday someone somewhere might get what they need from the seeds I plant. 

How are you doing through all of this? Have you found ways to make sure that each day is meaningful, even though they are different? Have you taken the time to define what your own IOUs are? Here's the link to the IOU assessment that we share in our book 'True North: Great teams are built, not born'.  I'd love for you to take a few moments and go through it for yourself and see what comes out. Drop a line in the comments to let me know what you discover.
​
For myself, realizing that those things that bring me the most joy and benefit the most other people are my own IOUs has given me a boost to keep moving forward for another day.  So with that, let the writing go on!  
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Moving far into October, change is everywhere around me, inside and out.  It’s been quite a while since I’ve posted anything, and there have been a variety of reasons/excuses as the case may be, but it’s time to start again, afresh. 

When I last wrote, it was from the home I’d dreamed of living in on the Island I’d long dreamed of inhabiting.  And for all the time there, although it was short in the scheme of things, I loved it.  I loved it to my core!  But that said, something in my core was amiss, and the work became figuring out what that was and finding healing.

It started almost a year ago in October, changes to my bodies routines that told me something was wrong.  As the months went on, and the fall, winter and then spring passed, answers still eluded us.  As everything I put into my body coursed right through it, my weight began to drop as did my level of energy and my faith that it was something minor I was contending with.  I felt unwell...and that to me is not a common feeling.  I was frightened to say the least. 

We have always loved the Kenora area, being near the incredible body of water that is called Lake of the Woods.  What if we explored that as a possibility that would give me more of what I needed in all areas of my life?  More time with family and friends here, but still the quiet and solitude that I crave to be my best creative self?  More time to be still in one place, instead of the hours spent covering the thousands of kilometers that separated us from our legacy....these children that are growing up before our very eyes at what seems to be the speed of light.  What if?

I proposed the idea to Cecil, and the spark in his eyes told me it was a need he’d been waiting on me to awaken to as well, and the search for our next ‘dream home’ began.  Like everything else in my life it seems, I threw what I imagined out to the Universe, and today, only weeks after the thought first crossed my mind, I am sitting in my new living room  staring out the window at the glassy waters of the lake before me.  I have been in this space for mere weeks, yet I am at home!  I am loving each moment...the morning call of the loons.  The eagle that regularly sours directly over the house.  The chickadees the are chattering in the trees throughout the yard.  Even the mink that came and greeted FeeBee and I on the dock while Cecil was out kayaking the day after we arrived here.  I have found and been blessed with what my heart has been conjuring for years, and am more blessed and grateful than I can say.

My heart also treasures every moment that I was able to spend in Qualicum Beach.  We’ve made amazing friends that will always be in our lives.  I was able to get back to my music, writing and creativity in a way I don’t think I would ever have been able to had that move not happened.  I was also able to detach myself from old pain and heartaches in a way that having stayed in place before the move would not have allowed.  Another day I will write about the gifts of finding a place to hold space for yourself.  But that day is not today.

And my health?  Well the biopsies showed that I have been living with microscopic colitis for the past year.  It can only be diagnosed through biopsy of the large intestine, but once diagnosed, can be treated with steroids to reduce the inflammation and get things back on track.  I am feeling so, so much better than I did for the last ten months.

I now often ask myself, would I have even thought about this move had I been feeling well enough to live life the way I had been accustomed to?  Probably not, and although my condition now has a name and a treatment available, I think it was also part of my body’s knowing that I needed to make change if I was going to be the Granny that I aspire to be.  If I am going to share the legacy and the wisdom of my ancestors, the hopes and dreams they poured through their sweat and efforts paving the way for this life I am so lucky to be able to live, I need to be present for those that may most benefit.  If I am to live my life in a way that is aligned with my values and vision of what this journey of mine will result in, this is where I will be best able to do that. 

​The stars have once again aligned to ensure that my path is well lit to best achieve my purpose for being.  Life is an amazing, beautiful thing.  Being clear on what it is that matters most, makes it that much more incredible!

​Four months into our transition, there are still as many questions as there are answers.  With that, I have found that I need to live in the questions…because I know the answer will come eventually…and if I strain myself to know it, I may push myself beyond what I’m able to appreciate and understand at this point…so I live in the questions.

Here are a sampling of them….

1. What was it that so pushed us to make the decision to move at this stage or our lives?  Yes, I know it’s been a long time dream…a life time dream to be more exact.  I was born here, I breathed this air until I was six, and I cried every time my parents took me to be near water after that…because the water I knew here on the Island chased me and played with me when I ran.  The water along the lakes in the prairie did not.  But was that enough?  Was that what called to my heart all of these years ?  Was that what my father heard call to him when he left rural Manitoba in 1953 to come out this way and join the Royal Canadian Navy?  Am I my Father’s child…because a part of me says he would think me crazy for the choices I have made…but another part of my soul tells me he understands completely and celebrates my choices…now. 
2. Why could I not be content with the life that had been established where I was..by who I was when those foundations were laid? There is most likely a contingent of beings that see all that we had where we were as perfect.  A lovely home, in a beautiful part of the province of Manitoba that most could not even imagine.  A house, a yard, a view…but why,  I keep having to ask myself…was that not enough to make me feel content, completely...at home..content?  Often it was, more than often it was…it was a grounding space where I felt my roots reach deeply down and connect me to more.  But then the flash would come and remind me that they were not necessarily my roots that were taking hold.  Instead they were the roots of my late husband’s dream of what would be the future of the farm that he and his father had established…so the internal conflict began.  As I grounded myself in that place,  I came to the realization that ‘wait a minute…I do love this, and I have lived out that dream for years now, but when I look at it at a deeper level I see that the dream I was living was someone else's dream, someone long passed.  The closing chapter of that dream, in the long run,  was him selling the farm and embracing the life of freedom and travel he envisioned for himself one day …the same life that I have chosen to embrace.  So why the feeling of guilt for living my own dream?  Note to self…we live others lives way too often for our own good.
3. You’ll miss the kids.  What will they think!!!  Yes, yes and yes…I am not sure.  We do miss the kids…every minute of every day.  But when we spend time, whether here when they come to visit, or back in Manitoba when we end up there…the time we spend together is absolute gold.  It is different from the time we spent together before…where one foot was in the office, and one was on the playground with them.  Now, when we are there…we are all there.  Maybe not as often, or as regularly.. .but more intentionally than ever I think.  And my greatest hope is that they will see that we’re not always just ‘there’ but instead that we are here…and with that, will expand their own horizons and opportunities…because LIFE should not be lived in one, rooted place.  Yes, we need roots…but just as importantly we need wings…to journey, to explore, to learn, and to grow.   Way too many people don’t know the value of living a life beyond their perceived borders and limitations…and that makes for such small, narrow minded views of such a vast, incredible world. So I begin see that what was growth for myself…what was part of our big adventure, was also the chance to create an opportunity for growth for our kids….?  And we are seeing that.
   

The #Future starts today, not tomorrow. How often do we forget that?
How many times to we put off doing the things that we most love, spending time with the people we most love, pursuing the passions that we most love believing that we don't have time today.  Thinking that tomorrow the time needed will magically appear and we'll get at things then.
But the old saying goes, tomorrow never comes, and it's true isn't it.  Tomorrow turns into another busy today, where the same reasons and excuses hold us back from doing what calls to our spirits.
With that in mind then, what are you going to do today, that will take you a step closer to the dream that lights the fire in your heart? What will move you in the direction of living a more full and passionate life? What you've always imagined your best self to be? You owe it to yourself to do something today...don't put it off until tomorrow.

It started in December of 2012.  I was on my way home from my training as a Passion Test facilitator, and had been doing much deep thinking about what was truly meaningful in life, or more specifically, my life.  That can be a dangerous thing for me to do.

We were a matter of weeks away from Christmas, and I had yet to do my shopping, but I tend to put it off because I really just don't like it.  It wasn't just that Christmas had become so hard with all the losses over the past few years...my parents, mother-in-law...most deeply my son.  But as I reflected, it had been a long time since I'd enjoyed it.  I remembered back to my days as a child, and in my twenties, and Christmas was so special.  We would wait all year, knowing that then might be the time we received those things we wanted so badly.  And that would be if 'Santa' was able to afford it, as it wasn't always the case.  That was when we'd receive the new clothes, the toys, the crafts...and you played with and cherished them until the next Christmas came around. 

But the world is different now.  We've become so disposable, and so unwilling to wait for anything.  What we want, we get, so that come the holidays there is very little left on the wish-list.  Add to that how incredibly commercial it is with the push by advertisers that the wish-list has become so big, so expensive or so technical, that it becomes a financial burden for families for months to follow, and in some cases years.

I thought about our large, combined family.  For years we'd get each of the grandchildren something useful, or smaller, clothes or a toy.  Then because we don't see them as often, or don't know what their individual tastes are, we'd give each of them a card with $50 in it so they could go and buy themselves something.  But as I thought about this habit on the trip home from San Diego, I became very sad, realizing that the habit was only widening the distance between them and us, as we never followed up on what it was that they chose to purchase, who they were becoming, if they even appreciated the money that was received.  My heart told me it was time for change, to bring a different meaning to these large family gatherings, and a stronger connection to those we love.

There was another catalyst to my wanting to make change as well.  Whenever I am away from home, I worry, as I'm sure many others do,  that in our absence someone will break in.  It's not that we don't have insurance to cover everything we have...stuff is replaceable.  But what I always tended to worry about more was my 'treasures', those things I've held on to as the family historian, or the pack-rat who attaches so much memory to items, knowing that if someone came in and vandalized our home, those 'treasures' would likely be destroyed and they were not things that I could replace.

The final thing that had me thinking was that I'd spent the previous two years in the clean up of my parents estate spending days on end going through the boxes and shelves of a home that held our family history for four generations.  With that came the sadness that so much of this 'stuff' meant something to someone. Of course there were things that were clearly valued that you could tell why, but there were more things that were kept for reasons we can't know, and there was a certain sadness of getting rid of someone elses 'treasures'.   I learned much from that process, and several things came out of it.  One being our new Christmas tradition.

I decided that year that from now on we all have enough 'stuff', and in so many cases we have way too much.  I want to pass along things to our kids that have meaning, at least for me, and I hope that in doing that I can provide a deeper meaning for them in terms of what I value, but also what is now their history, as they are now part of my family.  So I started that year, looking around the house at all of those things that I have my heart attached to, and began picking out one thing for each person in the family, our children and grandchildren.  My husband Cecil did the same. 

When we had picked out something for everyone, I then wrote each of them a letter to go with the item.  I explained to them why this item was so close to my heart, who it had come from, how I'd ended up with it...any story attached to it that I wanted to share. 

It was such an amazing experience, because as I wrote those letters and shared those memories, all of my lost loved ones gathered around me and became part of the celebration of all the wonderful memories I've had the privilege of collecting on this journey.  In sharing the stories I was able to share them with my own grandchildren and they could begin to see the people that were so instrumental in laying the foundation of who I have become.  My own grandparents, my parents, my son as well as Cecil's parents.

The second part of that Christmas's gift was creating a certificate for each of the grand-kids to fill out telling us what they would like to do in the next year with either their Grandpa, myself or both of us, that we could do together to create a memory.  This part made me very nervous, I will admit, because we could have had 12 kids all say they wanted to go to Disney world, and we'd have had to find a way to make it happen, as we'd opened the door.  But they didn't, instead we had wishes like going to a movie together, going put-put glow golfing, a camping trip in the summer, having manicures together, me teaching one to play guitar and a day of baking together.

I had been very nervous that they would look at this decision at our Christmas gathering and wonder what in the heck I had in my mind, passing along all this old 'stuff' and not receiving the expected $50 (which note to self, would have worked out a lot cheaper in the end, but we wouldn't be where we are now as a family).  Instead, everyone felt it was our best Christmas ever, and the best part was it lasted so long into the New Year as we arranged dates to follow through on all that we'd promised we'd do together.  That time spent together has created an entirely different connection, and I'm loving it.

One of my greatest memories is from after the day Haley and I had our baking day, making cupcakes for Grandpa's birthday at a campground in Kenora.  The family knows I'm not a baker, but we did it, even though some of the cupcakes turned out a little dark you might say.  She said not to worry, she's just put more icing on those ones.  When we were done she asked me if we were going to do certificates again the upcoming Christmas, so I asked her if she thought we should.  She said yes, that was the best Christmas ever.  That coming from a nine year old was a compliment that warmed my heart so much, and so we did. 

I love so many things about that decision. I love that we are challenged to keep that list in mind, and arrange our lives around making sure it gets fulfilled and the time we promised is spent.  I love that when the kids come to my house now, they are looking at everything differently and asking the story behind things, engaging in a completely different way.   I love that we are creating memories, because from where I stand now, looking back, I remember so little of the things that people gave me, but so much of the memories we made together. That is what I want for them. 

Last year, to make sure everyone had something to unwrap, we got each of the kids a gingerbread house kit..the one year old right through to the eighteen year olds.  I made sure that we had lots of extra decoration and had everything set up, so that after the tobogganing, eating, snowmobiling and unwrapping was done, everyone headed down to the tables in the garage and we spent the next two hours putting together those little works of art.  The kids loved it, the adults had no choice but to help, and we as a family had fun...together.   To me, that is what the spirit of Christmas is about.  

Thanks for letting me share.