Good morning! I am drinking my coffee and reflecting on the past week. Since I had set this time aside for a chat with anyone who needed it, I decided to do some “grief work” of my own. I am thinking about the overall events of the week- what went well, what I could have done better, and key takeaways. I think one of the main things that I have been struggling with over the last week is how to separate myself from all of the terrible things happening in the world right now. As an empath, it’s particularly hard to see posts on social media that involve children who are suffering as a result of things happening in an adult world. They are innocently caught in the cross fire and I want so badly to find a way to protect them. I know that I can not possibly save all of the children in the world that need it, as much as I would want to. So, where does this leave me? The obvious one seems to be that I could limit my exposure to social media- which I continue to work on, but is not very realistic while trying to gain more presence myself on social media platforms. I am left with the realization that I can only do so much, but what I can do I will to the best of my ability. Helping others in my community-especially vulnerable children and families, using my voice to advocate for others who can’t do that for themselves, providing support and resources,… At the end of the day, that is really all any of us can do. If we focus on our corners of the world, we can make an impact- especially all of us with hearts that can relate to grief and loss. Let’s at least keep trying. 💝 Julie

Someone just shared with me their tradition of honoring their lost loved ones on their birthday. They give a toast to them with whatever drink was their favorite. When asked what my sister, Erica’s, favorite drink was, I immediately remembered her special concoction of “cookie juice”- (see recipe below). Another thing that we can incorporate into traditions that honor our loved ones is sharing family recipes and passing them down. What are some of your favorite family traditional recipes? 💝🍪🥛

Good Monday Morning- and Groundhog Day! Here in PA, our most famous prophetic rodent is named Punxsatawney Phil. He resides in western PA and draws lots of people to this small town every February. Apparently, Groundhog Day stemmed from an ancient Christian holiday called Candlemas- basically a halfway point between the winter solstice and spring equinox. I love how this has become a fun tradition at a time when most of us in PA are getting tired of the cold winter weather. Traditions and rituals help us to keep going and have something to look forward to. Rituals can also be personal things that we do to honor a lost loved one’s life or birthday. A new tradition/ritual that I started this year to honor my sister’s birthday was to buy a “Carvel Cookie Puss” cake complete with her name, Erica, written on it. It was a good way to remember her and the laughter and joy we shared over this simple thing. What are some of the things that you do as traditions to remember and honor your loved ones? Week 7 of the 12 week program is dedicated to creating Traditions and Rituals based on memories of loved ones. 💝 Julie

It has been an emotional week full of highs and lows. The main event of the week for me was the birth of “One Free Soul Grief Journey,”in my sister’s honor, finally happening. After months of hard work putting the pieces together, and actually years of behind the scenes life time work, to see this coming together and materializing has made me feel so very proud. There have been some lows during the week too along with some doubts. Tonight, when I was visiting my new friend in Cedarbrook Nursing home, I noticed this book next to her bed. I asked her if she was reading it. She said she was, but it was hurting her eyes and she hadn’t gotten very far. She told me I should borrow it and give it back when I come next Friday. So, I graciously accepted. I opened it up just now and see a folded up tissue where she left off. Guess what chapter she was on- “My Sister, My Friend”! Wow, what a chapter this is shaping up to be. “One Free Soul” and “My Sister, My Friend”. I am truly speechless. Looking forward to helping you start your next chapter of healing and growth. 💝Julie

I finally got around to putting Christmas away. This made me think that we often live life on auto-pilot and are literally just going “through the motions.” I came to this realization when I sat down to take a break and actually looked at the ornaments on my tree a little closer. My focus went to the beautiful one honoring my sister- “Always my sister, forever my angel”. On the surrounding branches are a red cardinal that symbolizes signs that I got from her after she passed, and a little angel that says “Joy” on it. What a great reminder from the little angel that was just put there, without thought, to fill a spot on the tree. We need to stop just going through the motions. Some days we need to slow down and look at things in a mindful, reflective way. It’s easy to be on auto pilot and just get through the day. It’s hard to slow down, but if we do that, and actually look around to purposely notice things, it can change our moods and perspectives. It doesn’t take huge things, rather the little ones that actually can bring us some Joy- just like the little angel on my tree says. 😇j