Challenging the Myth of “Moving On” From the Loss of Someone You Loved- Ways to Carry their Love and Lives Forward in Meaningful Ways I want to talk about something that we have been led to believe. It is the idea that we need to have some kind of timeline for grief and loss, and after this timeline is complete, we will just simply carry on with our lives and head off into the proverbial sunset for the next phase- essentially “moving on and letting go”. I want to debunk this myth and challenge this “stage” of grief and loss once and for all. This myth has caused many of us to feel like there is something wrong with us if we can’t move on with our lives and let go of our loved ones. If we think about it on a deeper level, we can start to see the flaw in this logic. Why would we, or why should we, expect that if we have loved someone and had a deep connection to them that we would actually want to let that go? I think it should really be just the opposite. What if we re-frame this into something that sounds and feels like this: I loved this person dearly and I lost them. I need to accept that they are gone, but I don’t have to forget about them and move on with my life acting as if they did not exist and that the connection was not important enough to continue to “carry” the love forward. I can still have room in my heart to accept new love and new people, but I do not have to let go of my loved one, I just need to look at it as a changed connection with them. What might this new connection look like? It will be different for everyone, but it could include honoring shared traditions and the things that mattered to our loved one. A favorite song, experience, or place can remain alive in our hearts, memories, and minds. What we shared with them can continue to matter. We can also honor them on special days, such as birthdays and anniversaries. Their favorite foods and recipes can still be part of our lives, recreated and shared with others as we talk about them and the memories connected to them.

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We have some new members to give some new life to my Skool room! What is a goal for this week? I’ll start- mine is to re-focus on getting my inner critic to stay in its place- in the back of my brain. It has been trying to re-surface lately!

Tell your inner critic to take a back seat because there is no room for it as you head into a better version of you and your life. Tell it that it's ok not to be perfect. Tell it that it's ok to make mistakes. Tell it that you're going to focus on the things that you did well and that it needs to keep fading into background as you move forward.

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