Come Join me on my new website

For those of you who have followed me on this blogsite and my Focus with Marlene blogsite, my blogs now will be on my new website, http://www.focuswithmarlene.com/ . Come join me there for continuing blog postings and podcasts.

I will be starting a brand new series entitled "Developing Character" on my Focus with Marlene blog that will be reader friendly to teens and young adults as well as older adults; and I will be starting a new series on Working your Way Through Grief ; that will offer simple ways to work your way through grief regardless of when you experienced your loss.

See you at my new website.

©2010 Marlene Anderson, MA, LMHC, NCC

Emotional Journey

When processing a loss, it seems as though our emotions are like a roller coaster. At first everything is dampened and grey, but then as we resume our life, the impact of that loss really kicks in and we find ourselves experiencing so many different kinds of emotions. Listen to Podcast #3 as it defines some of them.

Marlene Anderson, MA, LMHC, NCC

copyright 2010

Pod #2 - The Many Faces of Loss

We suffer many losses throughout our lifetime. It is important to process all of them - which means giving yourself permission to feel and grieve that loss. It was important to you. Unprocessed or ungrieved losses will be triggered by later losses in life. Validate your feelings. Honor your journey.

New Series with Podcast

In the upcoming weeks, I will be posting podcasts that deal with the losses in our life and ways to help us process and heal from them. I will share some of my own struggles with death and dying and grieving the loss of two very important people in my life: my husband and my youngest son. If you are going through a loss or know of someone who is, this upcoming series might be helpful.

Marlene Anderson, MA, LMHC, NCC

copyright 2010

A World Upside Down and Inside Out

A major loss can turn a person's world upside down and inside out leaving you spinning like a top, stunned, bewildered and in shock. The world as you knew it no longer exists. The sun is shining, the traffic keeps moving, and children are playing; yet you are deadened to the sights and sounds of life all around you. You move within your familiar sphere of the world, but are no longer a participant. You have become an observer on the outside looking in- a robot moving without awareness.

Major losses can come from many different situations: the death of a beloved spouse or long awaited child, a teen gone astray, an ending to a marriage, a dream that has lost its potential, a major mistake resulting in a prison sentence. Such losses produce the same result: life as it was will never be again. Life is more than a home, a career, or things. It is relationships and love and hopes and dreams. When those have been stripped from you, your world becomes empty and barren, devoid of pleasure and comfort.

Yet within those losses, we can move towards a new beginning. As you work through the pain and uncertainity, God will meet you there and guide you gently through the dark canyons and long dry deserts of the soul. And just as physical wounds heal heart wounds will also heal. Although the journey may seem endless, we will discover along the way new ways to experience peace and even joy. As we move through this journey of grief and loss, reach out to others and up to God, grab hold of hope and hang on. God will sustain you. You can heal and recover.

Marlene Anderson, MA, LMHC, NCC

copyright 2010

The Healing Power of Love

"They found grace out in the desert, these people...out looking for a place to rest, met God out looking for them. God told them, "I've never quit loving you and never will. Expect love, love and more love! And so now I'll start over with you and build you up again...You'll resume your singing, grabbing tambourines and joining the dance. You'll go back to your old work of planting vineyards on the Samaritan hillsides, and sit back and enjoy the fruit..." Jeremiah 31, "The Message"

So what does a passage in the Old Testament written by an ancient prophet to the people of Israel have to do with grief?

When I was processing the loss of my husband, I found the Bible to be a great comfort. The Psalms were filled with cries for God to hear the writer's pain, sorrow, fears and anxieties, asking for protection, guidance and healing. And there were songs of joy and praise and deliverance. Together, the right words I needed each morning seemed to jump off the page, grab my soul and heal my spirit. These people could be honest about what they were feeling. There was power behind the words and they had an immediate impact on my pain. I was not alone in what I was feeling.

The Psalms began my journey of wandering through the Bible instead of a formal study, and each day when I opened it up, some new passage grabbed my attention as though it were highlighted. I found words that I needed to hear so many times and in so many places in the Bible, it made me laugh. Why were they so powerful? Why did they have such an impact on my own grief?

I believe it was because I found people just like me who were experiencing the same things I was. They spoke openly to God, expressing their need for answers to their questions, demanding God reveal Himself to them, and seeking comfort and direction in the process. When I inserted my name within the passages, they became a personalized message to God and from God and I experienced hope and comfort.

We need many tools to help us through the process of grief. Sometimes it is words we hear in a song or a sermon or read in a story. It can be the unfailing call of a good friend checking in. It can be quiet walks allowing nature to calm and quiet us in its beauty, or it can be the daily nourishing of God's love as I experienced each day through the Bible.

Grief tends to isolate us as we find it difficult to describe what we are experiencing, the inconsistencies of thoughts and feelings. We want and need to know that others have gone through this journey and need to know that the pain we feel will come to an end.

If we are willing to reach out, we will find the support we need to facilitate our trip through the desert of our souls and we will not feel so alone. If we step forward each day with words of comfort and hope, our pain will gradually shrink and be replaced with activities and friendships that will bring us joy, happiness and contentment again.

"As a desert that springs to life after a rain, my spirit drinks in the beauty of sunrises and painted clouds and eagles soaring and I know that God is all around me. And I am at peace."

Marlene Anderson, MA, LMHC, NCC
www.MarleneAnderson-Focus.com
www.focuswithmarlene.blogspot.com
contributing author www.authorhaven.blogspot.com

Healing Tears

I received a song today composed by a friend about my son who died in November 2009. It immediately triggered tears - healing tears. And I was reminded of the times after my husband died when I would be driving, picking someone up from the airport, listening to music, or watching a loving couple and my eyes would sting with fresh tears. I was also reminded of the twists and turns the grief process can take and like any process, we cannot put a time frame on it.

We never "get over" a loss. As others have so eloquently said, our losses are woven into the fabric of our lives. For me, it is first a reconciliation, then recovery before we can proceed to a transition that allows memories to make us smile instead of cry. As time passes, we might feel confused and uncomfortable at how quickly our grief and pain can still be triggered. In those moments, it is important to remember that each time a pain is revisited and processed, more healing occurs. Like a physical wound that is tender to the touch, a heart wound is tender to anything that reminds us of what we no longer have or will never have.

Most of us feel uncomfortable crying in public social circles; but it is when we restrict the tears in private or with a good and valued friend that we do ourselves a disservice. Allow those moments of grief to rise to the surface. Don't restrict them by a pre-supposed time frame or intellectualizing them. Grief by its very nature is an emotional journey. Healing requires getting comfortable with any and all of the emotions that is triggered by loss. Recovery happens as we go through the pain, begin to fill in the crater the loss leaves with new beginnings, taking what was and integraing it into our lives. Even ugly scars can be turned into something beautiful and meaningful.

Marlene Anderson, MA,LMHC,NCC