“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: How Do You Know if You’ve Officially Let Go?
Dear Journeyer, “How do you know if you’ve officially let go?” asks one of our neighbors. What a beautiful question. There really is no one right or wrong answer. The simplest answer is that you just know. You feel a sense of peace or resolution from your belly to your bones. Sometimes the heavens open, the angels sing, the doves … Read More
Ask Annah: Why I Stayed Married after My Husband’s Two Affairs
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
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
The Reason Grief Feels Eternal
Even though it’s been twenty-seven years since my firstborn’s arrival into this world, I remember how eternal those weeks following his birth were. Like many moms do, I swayed in the rocker at the foot of the crib we’d so lovingly adorned the nursery with. I twisted the dial on the bed chamber’s musical mobile and awaited its soothing melodies. I … Read More
The 5 by 5 Formula, a 5 Facets Happiness Rule
“The 5 x 5 Rule: If it’s not gonna matter in 5 years, don’t spend more than 5 minutes being upset by it.” ~ Author Unknown Happy Sunday, Journeyer! I’m having a hard time trying to tell you how my week went… Seldom am I at a loss for words and after numerous starts and re-starts, nothing feels right… But … Read More
Healing and the Two Sides of Darkness
Winter is well underway, Journeyer, and Seasonal Affective Disorder looms over many of our heads. This post I wrote a year ago was wildly popular and I can only surmise it is because there are many thousands of us whose bodies don’t work quite right during those winter days and months of shortened daylight. May you find some modicum of … Read More
Making Merry, Nice, and the Most of Life through Changing Our Thoughts
“The happiest people don’t necessarily have the best of everything; they make the best of everything.” ~ Author Unknown Happy Sunday, Journeyer, You know those expressions about being split wide open or having our hearts swell to the breaking point? Those are the things that happen right before our greatest personal growth moments. They are the loss events that eventually lead … Read More
You’re a Mini Genius
Happy Sunday, Journeyer! Have you ever considered your genius or thought about how brilliant you are? So many of us don’t, but one of this week’s happy highlights has me pondering that very topic. Yesterday I answered the phone to hear this shriek of exclamation from my sister, “You’re a mini genius!” A few hours earlier I had offered her … Read More
Healing and the Two Sides of Your Calendar
I recently sat in on a class titled Administrative Skills for Office Professionals. One of the things I’ve always said to my children and anyone else who would listen is this: “We can learn something new every day if our mind is open to it. It might be something as simple as a person’s name, but we’ve learned something.” I’ve … Read More