Tag Archives: trouble

Quiet Mind Leads To Guidance

Aahhh… Pinterest. I love you so. I pin TONS of things to TONS of boards. There are my select boards which I review periodically. Then there are the boards I hardly look at after creating. Today while looking back at my inspirational board I was reminded of a very important message, “As I quiet my mind I can more clearly hear my inner guidance.” I needed to have this reminder today. The harsh voices have been rearing their ugly heads for the past week and it has really interfered with me being in tune with my inner guidance.

This morning, after an uninterrupted night of sleep (I didn’t even pee until 5am!), I cleared my head and got in touch with my inner guidance. I feared that my terrible, nasty self talk had finally trumped inner guidance. I feared that it was scared away. It was not. It just needed some attention and quiet!

Some of you may wonder what any of this has to do with losing Christian. It may seem as if I am self righteously rambling on. PsychologyToday.com states, “Activations of lower, more primitive areas, including the fear center, are high, while higher areas of the brain (also known as cortical areas) are underactivated. In other words, if you are traumatized, you may experience chronic stress, vigilance, fear, and irritation.” My insecurities are a major irritation. In the past I was able to expend energy to keep them at bay. Since losing Christian my energy expenditure has shifted to easing the above experiences. There is little reserve for my insecurities. To say the least, this interferes with getting in touch with my inner guidance.

My insecurities revolve around self degradation and the question, “Am I enough?”. When it is filtered through my grief and trauma it becomes increasingly difficult for me to rebuke these thoughts. My therapist has provided me with many tools and coping mechanisms along the way. For the most part these work to ground me and bring me back to the present. Sometimes though I fall into the downward spiral.

In the solitude of the morning however, while breathing and quieting my mind, I was able to pull out of that spiral. I connected to my own heart, in which I receive guidance and messages from Christian. I quieted my mind and just listened. As he always does, he helped me to understand what the next step on my journey is. For the hope he provided me, I am very grateful.

So don’t ever discount those ideas you pin and don’t forget to periodically review them! You never know where it might lead you. Most importantly remember to quiet your mind when you need to get some inner guidance. Love to heaven…

Don’t Borrow Trouble

A few weeks ago while my husband patiently carved pumpkins with my boys I was reminded of Halloween 2010. Anthony, my middle son, had just been born, exactly one week before Halloween. In an effort not to diminish the excitement of Halloween for Christian, my parents carved his first pumpkin with him.

It doesn’t take much for me to see them in the kitchen. The newspaper was spread across the table. Two large, bright orange pumpkins sat ready to be carved. Christian, full of energy, wore an old collared white shirt. This was to protect his timely Halloween pajamas. As the first child he always had pajamas for the holidays and only wore them at the appropriate time of year.

Christian’s excitement vibrated throughout the house. The brightness of his smile rivaled the bright orange hue of the pumpkins. My parents assigned him the appropriate jobs of picking which shapes he wanted the eyes, smile and nose to be. After cutting off the top they also gave him the job of scooping out the pumpkin gunk. For an almost three year old boy, this was a great task! He sat with his arms elbow deep in the pumpkin scooping out the flesh.

This is how life is now. I live half in the past and half in the present. Each time my boys experience an event, it is linked in my mind to when Christian experienced it. Sometimes I share my memories with my husband and my boys. Sometimes I keep them to myself. I clutch my memories just as tightly as an elderly woman holds her purse. Fear is the same driver for both of us. The fear for me is that somehow these memories will be taken from me by time.

Time is my enemy and also my friend. The cyclical nature of it helps to perpetuate memories. The repetitiveness of special days, holidays, places we went and things we did are burned into my memory. It is both overwhelmingly sad and beautiful at the same time. As much as the current daily events also spark my memories and sometimes intense sadness, it scares me when his life won’t be as relatable to my children anymore. My fear is as they move out of the easily comparable age range, memories will dissipate and become less relevant. In some ways that is unavoidable. There are numerous milestones and events that Christian never got to experience. Right there the relatability factor is affected.

As much as the above is true I am reminded, as I write this and reflect, of the many things I “thought” child loss would encompass. Some which came to fruition and some that didn’t. The thing is we never quite know what will happen. Immediately after losing Christian I feared my boys would never remember him. This is worlds away from the truth. I worried that my boys would carry on without carrying a piece of their brother with them. Again, quite the contrary. So as much as I project what might occur in the future, I am well aware that none of it may happen. One of my mentors often reminds me, “Don’t borrow trouble”. We have enough in our daily lives. Why become anxious and spend energy worrying about something that may never happen? Love to heaven…