By Trina O’Quinn for the NABBW I spoke often about grief and loss in 2022. I also covered journaling and the different types of journaling as the way I chose to listen to my inner self. I used it to figure out what was bothering me and what to do about it. This year I will continue to use my journal for that purpose, while adding gratitude and joy as this year’s focus. Why did I choose gratitude? I chose it because it is my pathway to joy. Joy is going to be my word of the year. For me, the year 2022 was one of deep loss. January 2, 2022, I was with my mother when she passed, and my husband... Read More

By Trina O’Quinn for the NABBW “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans” ~ John Lennon, lyric from “Beautiful Boy,” from his last album, ‘Double Fantasy,’ with Yoko Ono. My intention was to follow up on my last blog post by describing types of journals one could use throughout life. Then on January 2, 2022, my mother died at age 97. She was healthy, her mind was still sharp, but her body started shutting down. So when the grieving started, I changed my plan and decided to write about what the grief of losing my mother has taught me so far. I’ll... Read More

By Trina O’Quinn for the NABBW This past July, I fell, bruising my knees and shoulders and whiplashing my neck. Today, I am still recovering. What I have found is that at age 75, I am not recovering like I used to, even at age 60. I am grateful that I did not break anything besides my ego. The fall triggered my fibromyalgia, causing pain all over my body, so I decided it was time to see a rheumatologist. She not only confirmed the fibromyalgia, but also diagnosed severe arthritis. After discussing my options for a recovery plan, together we decided that I would begin with aquatic physical... Read More

By Trina O’Quinn for the NABBW “Life Is What Happens While You’re Busy Making Other Plans” – John Lennon As I began pondering this month’s blog, this quote continued to run through my mind. I am one of many people in the world who has music in the background of my brain all the time. Along with the quote came the music and lyrics to the song Let It Be, also by John Lennon: “Singing Words of Wisdom, Let It Be, Let It be.” So, I asked myself: What do either of these quotes have to do with my current Blog? What do they have to do with my theme of Grief? The answer was the theme of... Read More

By Trina O’Quinn for the NABBW While trying to write my next article for you, I experienced writer’s block due to low motivation, probably brought on by my own grief. So I took some of my own advice and decided to reflect on my state of being through meditations on what I was feeling. (There is that “f” word again.) Next, I reread my previous blogs. In doing this, I made the discovery that the tips I gave you for finding your way through grief were actually just the bullet points of larger concepts. I realized that to be more helpful, I really needed to offer you examples, or find you... Read More

By Trina O’Quinn for the NABBW As the pandemic continues, I am becoming more aware of what it means to experience disenfranchised grief: The illusion of Normalcy and Control is slowly being taken away from me. (I suspect that this has happened to everyone.) In trying to write this month’s blog I realized that I was experiencing too many instances of disenfranchised grief.  If I tried to cover them all this blog it would become a novel.  So, I decided to write about a few of the most unrecognized or unspoken losses in my life. The first is the loss of the ability to plan, to have something... Read More

By Trina O’Quinn for the NABBW I ended my last blog post,  in which I discussed how I was dealing with the losses generated by the COVID pandemic, with a plan to Reflect, Remember, Rest, Recharge, Refocus, Resolve and have Curiosity while doing the “six Rs of grief.” As time has moved forward, I have tried to separate the steps and work on them in a vertical progression. A month later, I am finding that as I try to go through the stages of grief, I am not achieving the usual result. So I have decided to grieve on a continuum, knowing that the stages will overlap or at least bleed... Read More

Dealing With Grief During the Holiday Season  By Chloe JonPaul, M. Ed. As the holiday season approaches, there are many persons dreading the very thought of it.  This may be due to the recent loss of a loved one, divorce, serious illness, family friction, diminished finances, and much more.  Whatever the reason, now is the time to become proactive in dealing with your grief.  There are effective tools to help you wage your battle with grief or help someone you know who is facing this dilemma. The first order of business is to “remember the reason for the season.”  At Thanksgiving we have... Read More

By Laurel D. Rund EssenceofLaurel@me.com Unbelievable as it seems, it has been four years since my husband passed away. Every year, from January 26th until February 19th, I go into a Bermuda triangle of memories and emotions – his birthday, the day of his death and our anniversary fall on these dates.   You would think grief would have loosened its hold on me, but these meaningful days still haunt me. I loved my husband for 44 years (notwithstanding all the ups and downs of most marriages).  Today, I am blessed to be in a committed and loving relationship with a wonderful man who has graced... Read More

Loss Is So Complicated… By Laurel D. Rund My feelings of grief and loss are complicated and intertwined within my very being. After my husband Marty’s death in 2009, I wrote a poem called “Grief’s Cloak. An excerpt from that poem came back to “haunt” me recently. “But wait! Was I also trying to outrun grief? No hide and seek here, it was up ahead ~ my mourning was not complete. Grief’s cloak is a harsh reminder that loss is real ~ it cannot be pushed away! And, if not accepted, even honored, it will clip my wings and leave me unable to fly. With this... Read More