April 4, 2013
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With a sad heart, I have to announce the newsletter has officially ceased.
It hasn’t gone out for some time. This December, I learned that I’d lost the entire subscriber’s list forever. No worry, the issue was with the provider, your information wasn’t lost out there in cyber space.
It was a beautiful project, but something I wasn’t great about keeping up with.
Thanks to anyone that signed up and read the messages.
November 25, 2012
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I took a break from healing.
Well, in a way healing has started to take place.
This summer, my family lost two of it’s core members–my father in law and much-loved grandmother. Their deaths set me back to the just breathing days of grief. The days when even the simplest tasks become more cumbersome. Like suddenly a 200 pound weight was strapped to my back, and I felt it with every move.
As many days as I tried to “force myself back on track.” Or determined that I’d start living a whole life again, it just wouldn’t work.
I learned a big lesson. You can’t force it.
Sure motivating yourself and pushing yourself to get out and do things like exercise are great. But, when you’re in the middle of the first months after grief, as much as you might try to will your mind to do it, only time will let it happen.
I felt a click tonight. Something release. The fog lifted a bit. I felt ready again. Ready to live. Ready to get back on track with living a whole life.
What’s a whole life? Well, it’s something I just made up. To me, it means being mindful in all I do. It means eating founds that nourish. It means feeding passions and interests. It means giving back whenever possible.
The fog could settle back in at any time, or it could be lifted again. It could pop in for a day or a month. I know all too well from grief experience that’s how it works.
For about a month this fall, I did little besides sit on the sofa and watch TV. It’s sad to admit, but it’s all I could do. Even lifting my computer to do basic work was too much. It’s come in baby steps. I slowly started being able to handle work better.
It’s a relief.
The fog is out of my control, and understanding that helps.
Photo by rchughtai
August 28, 2012
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As loss moms, the heavy sadness of our baby’s deaths often outweigh something amazing their birth.
I’m offering this giveaway on my blog for loss moms because I wanted to give moms a chance to win something that signifies that you gave birth, rather it was to a baby born sleeping, a baby that died later or even if you birthed your baby through miscarriage. Your baby grew inside of you, and we all gave birth, but perhaps not in the traditional sense.
This giveaway is being held on a large group of blogs, most not for loss moms so as you’re clicking through the entries, be aware there might be triggers.
Juno Lucina has been the symbol of childbirth for over 1000 years. She is the Roman goddess of childbirth and she protects mothers and their newborn babies. This pendant resembles Juno Lucina’s hands that are cradling and protecting the heads of both the mother and child. Check out their NEW website for more symbolic gifts, the story behind them, and a discount code! These make great “push presents” for the new mom in your life.
GIVEAWAY: one lucky winner will get the Juno Lucina Signature Pendant! This gorgeous piece is 14K white or yellow gold and has a total 1/5 carat weight with natural diamonds. Retail price is $499. Please use the form below to enter–there are no mandatory entries so do as many or as few as you’d like. Ends September 10th.
Thanks to Emily at Baby Dickey for organizing this giveaway! You can read her personal review of the Juno Lucina pendant on her website.
-disclosure: I am not affiliated with Juno Lucina or Baby Dickey in any way, nor did I receive product or compensation for this post. By posting this, I am entering into a referral contest for my own pendant from Juno Lucina.
Make sure to write “Healing After Loss” as the blog that referred you! Best of luck!
July 24, 2012
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I am working on a new project and want the input from other grieving moms. If you have a moment, could you fill out this form with questions about your experience with medical professionals after your baby died?
Sending you so much love and light. <3
July 6, 2012
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Three weeks ago, my healing took a huge step back. My grandmother, my second mother, passed away rather suddenly. Then her funeral was at the same funeral home I last held my daughter. I nearly broke. I did break for a moment. I screamed and kicked and yelled.
Now three weeks later, I’m not close to back where I was. I’m in a new place and on a new path, but still a healing path.
My grief wounds were torn open and a new deep cut was created.
I’m reminded once again that post traumatic stress disorder is a real condition, and that I definitely suffer from it. I have general feelings of anxiety and uneasiness. I’m suffering from horrible nightmares in which other family members die or I relive the awful moments when my daughter died. I also have flash backs during the day.
From what I’ve read the only treatment option for post traumatic stress disorder is therapy. I wonder how much talking will help. I know it will be a slow process. But, if it’s the only option, it’s the only option.
So for now, my healing efforts will focus on finding a care provider I’m comfortable with. Preferably someone that has experience with loss to walk me through how to deal with the flashbacks, the avoidance behaviors and the nightmares.
I’ve read to stay away from triggers. But what about when the triggers come to me? I opened the mailbox this morning to a post card. One the front were three adorable babies. A trigger all on it’s own. I flipped it over and the first thing I looked at was who the card was addressed to, Cora.
We’ve moved twice since Cora died. One of those moves was to a different county, but yet the department of health could track us down to send this. Sorry department of health, but my daughter is behind on immunizations because she died.
As much as parents hate watching their baby cry after getting a shot, I so wish I could have comforted Cora after her immunizations. I wish she were here.
My mind is a complete mushy mess today. The entire world just seems off again. The fog resettles. Time becomes blurry.
It’s the stress after the trauma.
That’s where I am on this healing journey now. Finding the courage to find a treatment plan for my PTSD and to get it treated.
July 6, 2012
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To read my other posts about juice fasting follow this link.
Sorry for taking so long to wrap this up. The day after I finished my juice fast, my grandmother, who was a second mother and best friend, passed away. Life has been a whirlwind of travel and trying to keep afloat every since.
Somewhere around day four, I started to realize I wasn’t getting enough juice. I couldn’t stomach drinking it all.
On the evening of day five, I switched to juice plus fresh fruit/veggies.
On day six, I caved and ended up returning to my vegan diet. I even stayed true to the vegan diet through my grandma’s funeral, but then I left for Washington D.C. the next day. I found eating on the go while vegan not so easy so added in dairy products.
I’ve decided to eat vegan at home and to add in the occasional dairy products when traveling. I travel about once a month, so this works best for me.
Back to the juice fast, I think it was a good exercise in self control. I did feel healthier when it was finished. My husband remarked that my skin was clearer, and looked healthy.
Unfortunately with my grandma’s death, I didn’t have time to even process the fast or fully feel the benefits.
June 16, 2012
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I’m journaling my 10 day juice fast:
I fell asleep before I could write my day four post last night, but overall the past two days have been pretty uneventful so it’s probably for the best I’m rolling them into one post.
The highlight (or low light) of the past two days was breaking out into hives. Okay, definitely the low light. They came on suddenly and were itchy. I don’t think it was the juice though because I’d just been sitting outside in front of a citronella incense stick so I think it was something in the incense or citronella. I’ve read incense smoke isn’t the best for you–my husband bought this one.
I popped two Benadryls and was quickly better. But they also made me pass out at about 7 p.m. last night, which meant I woke up at about 5 a.m. Don’t worry, I’ve already napped once today.
All the juices I’ve made have been tasty, so I’m getting in the groove finding combinations that aren’t too chuck full of fruit sugar but also taste decent.
I’m also taking it easy. I’ve spent lots of time relaxing and rejuvenating. Speaking of which, I’m totally addicted to “Game of Thrones” and am off to watch another episode.
June 14, 2012
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I’m journaling my ten day juice fast.
I’ll start with last night. Night time when laying in bed before sleep seems to be the toughest time for me. I was totally hungry and fell asleep thinking about what my first post fast bite will be (avocado for the win).
I woke up feeling pretty great. I again decided to grab my allotted once daily bottled juice for my morning juice. I’m not a morning person. I felt clear and ready to focus. I don’t even know how the idea popped in my head, but I thought about how I’ve always wanted to write a letter to the OB that cared for me while I was pregnant with Cora. And I did it!
It was definitely healing and something I don’t think I would have done had I not been fasting.
After I wrote the letter and opened emails and blah, blah, blah, I decided to make my first juice of the day.
I was so looking forward to it because I was putting a whole pint of blackberries and half a bag of grapes in it, and then a bunch of veggies.
Then this happened.
I knocked over the juice, and it went all over the corner of my kitchen. I couldn’t resist snapping a quick photo of the juice fiasco before I got to work cleaning it up. I was terrified that the juice would stain the cupboards or wall, but it didn’t.
I was so sad I wasted so much good juice and so many fresh veggies. Realistically, it was probably my most expensive juice yet. After I cleaned up, I made the juicers version of comfort food a fruity mix and moved on.
This afternoon I went to the store to stock up on supplies and spent another $12. I’ve spent about $50 so far, but totally have a ton of fruits and veggies so I think this fast is going to end up costing me less than $10 a day.
June 13, 2012
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My day one post from my ten day juice fast.
I fully expected today to be a horrible, awful, no-good day. Everything I read online said that the second day was bad. I expected headaches and flu like symptoms. Honestly, I thought I was going to not make it through today because if it got worse than yesterday, then there was no way I could handle it.
After I wrote this post I curled into bed to watch Dance Moms (I know, I know, it’s horrible, but it’s my bad TV thing). I was feeling crappy, and getting a headache, and not just from the drama queens bickering on the show. During a commercial break I grabbed the other half of my gazpacho juice from the fridge. I took one drink and almost gagged. It was that bad. It wasn’t great when it was fresh, but I couldn’t stand it.
I was hungry and crabby and couldn’t imagine going through with this for ten days with juice I couldn’t stomach.
This morning I ran out of time to make a fresh juice so instead had my allotted once a day commercial juice, Odwalla Super B. That I think turned out to be a good thing. I felt better.
When lunch juice time rolled around, I decided to not follow the juice recipes but just to think about what would taste okayish to me. I figured out that the cucumber and celery in the juice from the night before were just not doing it for me. When juicing, it’s good to try to have way more vegetables than fruits. I decided to add one fruit to my juices each to make it tolerable.
My lunch juice:
Spinach
Apple
Lemon
Green pepper
It was totally yum! Lemon is going to be my friend because it over powers everything.
I’m going to continue juicing like this, what sounds good to me. My dinner juice wasn’t as good as the lunch juice, but was tolerable.
Dinner juice:
Spinach
Radishes
Apple
Sweet potato
I had tons of energy today, and am feeling great!
I did have some moments of total hunger, but they passed quickly, and I feel like I can keep going for the ten days.
June 12, 2012
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This post will probably be a bit all over the place because I’m feeling a bit foggy in the brain. Not unexpected with a juice fast.
So yes, I’m juice fasting for ten days! Today is my first day. Yesterday I went to the grocery store and bought an insane amount of fresh fruits and vegetables to get me through three or four days. I woke up this morning and got to it.
After Cora died, I gained an absurd amount of weight. Like 80 or 90 pounds in a little over a year. I wasn’t able to cook. I didn’t trust myself to not burn something or to not cut myself. I frankly didn’t have the energy either. We survived off of convenience foods and fast foods. I’m not beating myself up for that. We did what we could to get by. Years one and two were so hard. Year three has been hard, but in a different way. I’m functioning better.
It’s time to start healing my whole body and mind. I’ve thought about a juice fast for a while. Then last week I watched Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead. Basically in the film the guy goes on a 60 day juice fast and loses like 60 pounds or something ridiculous. Most importantly, his health becomes infinitely better. It really started the wheels turning in my head.
I’m not completely sold. I’m a born skeptic, and have looked at the anti-juice fasting commentary. However, I’ve got nothing to lose (except some weight and health issues–hopefully).
I’m fasting to lose weight, but also to check in to see where and why I’m using food. Whenever I get the urge to eat, I’m thinking about it. Am I really hungry? Am I bored? Am I sad?
It worked because the next ten days aren’t jammed pack. I’ve been able to clear my calendar well so I can focus on this. It’s part of my healing.
You might be curious about what sort of juices I’m drinking. This morning, I had carrot, apple and ginger. I just juiced those three ingredients. More on my thoughts about the ginger further in the post. I got the recipe from the Join the Reboot website. However, my husband and I have had carrot-apple juice before.
I had a commercial Odwalla juice for a snack. I’m making three juices a day and having one pre-made. The Odwalla has lots of fruits, which I actually need to tone down (sad face, fruit juice is good, veggie juice is… tolerable).
For my next juice, I had Gazpacho juice, also based on the Join the Reboot website. For it, I juiced:
All chopped up and ready to juice.
4 plum tomatoes
2 celery stalks
1 green pepper (it calls for red, which the store didn’t have)
2 cups parsley
1 cucumber
1 red onion
A splash of lime juice (forgot to buy fresh limes)
