6 Months of Grief Project: Day 64

More Than Meets the Eye

This is Day 64 of my #6MonthsOfGrief Project. To learn more about this practice, feel free to visit Day One, where I explain this project in more detail.

Because I've started a new job, I've been meeting and getting to know lots of new people. I am faced with this strange experience of discerning when (if ever) to divulge my current life situation of being a new widow. Obviously, it's no secret - I blog about it every day! But I do find that when you enter a new work environment, it's best to tread lightly until people get to know you. Folks can have strange reactions to sudden death stories, even in offices as enlightened and focused on transformation as this one. So I share what feels comfortable, when it comes up, knowing that there are vast forests inside me that my fellow co-workers may never know.

Bel Marin Keys - my favorite lunch spot at my new job.

I'm being trained by an incredibly sweet woman who is moving on to new experiences and following her dreams. I took her out to lunch yesterday to thank her for her kindness, patience and good humor as I stumble along through all the parts of my new job. Despite our almost 20 year difference in age, she and I have so much in common and we talked for a long time about our shared passions and interests. As I told her stories of my life, I was actually amazed at how much I have done and accomplished. I realized how incredibly hard on myself I am, all the time. I constantly feel like I have done nothing with my life - that I've accomplished nothing of value. But as I shared my stories of being a minister and a teacher and a healing artist, I started to realize that I actually have done a lot with my life and it made me feel good, even if it was just for a few hours. I am vast, and I contain multitudes. There is so much more to me than meets the eye. There is a wild garden growing inside me, which I tried to capture in today's grief image.

I'd like to be kinder to myself. I'd like to honor my gifts a bit more. I'd like to maybe even love myself someday. Today, I will focus on feeding myself, and getting my chores done and possibly taking a nap. One day at a time.

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I am very aware that this project can bring up a lot around yours or other's grief and loss, I will always follow every post with some online grief support resources that have helped me. Please feel free to let me know of online support that you have found healing in your grief, as well:

Art with Grief:

• Photographer [Sarah Treanor] Takes Moving Self-Portraits to Cope with Her Fiance's Death by Jillian Wong
• When the Fall Comes, a film about Grief by Adriana Marchione
• Self-Portraits: Expressing Emotion Through Art on What's Your Grief?
• The Hard Romance of Grief by Mark Liebenow
• The poetry of John O’Donohue

Resources for Widows:

• Widowed Village
• Camp Widow

• Soaring Spirits International

Living with Grief Resources:

• Modern Loss's excellent resource list
• Grief Bibliography on Grief Healing
• Understanding How Grief Weakens the Body

• Teresa “TL” Bruce's What to Say When Someone Dies
• They Brought Cookies: For A New Widow, Empathy Eases Death's Pain by Ann Finkbeiner on NPR
• A Field Guide to Getting Lost by Rebecca Solnit

• Megan Devine’s Refuge in Grief

• The Geography of Sorrow: Francis Weller on Navigating Our Loses, interviewed by Tim McKee in Sun Magazine

• How to Be a Friend in Deed by Bruce Feiler in the New York Times

• 12 Things to Know About the First Year of Grieving Someone You Can’t Live Without by Laurie Costanza in Elephant Magazine

And remember, I am sharing this project on a variety of platforms, including my Instagram, Twitter, & Facebook feeds, as well as my Pinterest page on Grief. I use the hashtag #6MonthsOfGrief, so it can easily be found on any platform. Please share this project with anyone you think might need it.

Thank you, and see you tomorrow.