Ask Annah: How Can I be Grateful in the Midst of So Much Pain?

Annah ElizabethAsk Annah, Loss, Grief, and Healing, Mental Health2 Comments

Dearest Neighbor, November 1st always arrives with a flourish of “gratitude” memes and requests for you to participate in all sorts of activities and posts throughout the month. This daily practice can be downright grueling, disheartening, and un-empowering when you are in the doldrums or in a state of despair. I recall feeling inadequate during my grief periods following my … Read More

Ask Annah (and Tiny Buddha): Why Do I Feel so Alone?

Annah ElizabethAsk Annah, Loss, Grief, and Healing, Mental Health, Relationships2 Comments

Dear Journeyer, Nearly every day I read this question or hear someone pleading for an answer to the overwhelming fear or loss they feel inside. A sense of loneliness or of feeling alone can impact any combination of your academic, emotional, physical, social, and spiritual facets and it is one of the factors that could be standing between you and … Read More

Ask Annah: How Do You Inspire Your Children to Do Their Chores?

Annah ElizabethAsk Annah, Family, ParentingLeave a Comment

“Encourage and support your kids because children are apt to live up to what you believe of them.” ~ Lady Bird Johnson, Former First Lady Like yours, our family always had something happening. School and school functions to meet those academic, social, and physical facet needs. Recreational sports and leisure activities to nurture those physical, social, spiritual, and emotional needs. … Read More

Ask Annah: Why Do Friendships Change After a Significant Loss?

Annah ElizabethAsk Annah, Family, Loss, Grief, and Healing, RelationshipsLeave a Comment

“Friendships are discovered rather than made.” ~ Harriett Beecher Stowe Dear Journeyer, “Why do friendships change after a significant loss?” is a question and conversation I hear regularly from people of all ages and across all loss forms. If you have discovered that your relationships with friends or family feel strange or estranged since a Significant Life Loss Event entered … Read More

Ask Annah: Why I Stayed Married after My Husband’s Two Affairs

Annah ElizabethAsk Annah, Family, Loss, Grief, and Healing, RelationshipsLeave a Comment

Dear Journeyer, Many people enter a state of disbelief when they learn that I am still married to the man who had two affairs following our wedding vows. And while some just can’t seem to wrap their brains around it, others have appeared flustered or fustrated, while one person wrote a scathing comment that basically described me as the reason … Read More

Ask Annah: Why Do I Feel Worse 2-3 Years after My Significant Life Loss Event

Annah ElizabethAsk Annah, Loss, Grief, and Healing, Mental Health2 Comments

Dear Journeyer, I am often asked some variation of this question: “It’s been three years since my child/parent/sibling/spouse/best friend died and I feel worse now than I did when it happened. What is wrong with me?” Though this query often references the death of a person, I have also heard it with regard to other forms of loss, including but … Read More