​Does wine bring joy? For so long I would have said “absolutely yes!”.  But recently I have been thinking that it may not actually bring me joy. UUUggghh alcohol!! I love it. I hate it.  I love the taste of wine.  I love the effects of wine, and yet, I hate the effects of wine.  I love that it helps me relax.  I hate that it helps me relax.  I’ve used alcohol to hide from my problems and numb grief.  I’ve also used it to celebrate.  I absolutely hate that alcohol is such a huge part of our society.  That it is portrayed as the ultimate way of celebrating.  That we can’t enjoy ourselves without it.  I hate that it is the only drug that when you opt out of partaking in, you are looked at weirdly and criticized. 
 
The fact is, alcohol is bad for you.  All the new data coming out shows just how bad it is and that there are no benefits of drinking.  And yet, part of me would still argue this, especially when I am out with friends and want to have a glass or three of wine.  When I heard all the data about just how bad alcohol is (Huberman Lab podcast) I decided to stop drinking.  I knew how detrimental it was to my sleep and I was starting to believe that it was affecting my mood as well.  Yes, I wanted it to help me relax and to aid in my search for joy but I was starting to find that at times it was also making me angry.  I mean if we are using alcohol to numb our pain, doesn’t that also mean that we are using alcohol to numb our joy? And that is the exact opposite of what I want.
 
So, what happened when I gave up alcohol?  Not much.  There were days I woke up refreshed and had more energy.  But there were still days when I woke up still tired and still in a bad mood. And I still missed wine.  I was seriously struggling with this internal dialogue.  Drinking will make me feel worse. Alcohol will make me feel better in the moment though.    UUUUgggghhhh.  Too many thoughts.  I’ve tried playing with only drinking when it is a social situation.  That went well for a while.  But then there were situations at home, when I just wanted to pour myself a glass of wine and enjoy the moment.  But the problem with that is I have now opened an entire bottle of wine for just one glass of wine.  Kind of a waste (seriously, they need to start making smaller bottles of wine).
 
So where have I landed? I haven’t.  Why can’t it be a compromise? Why can’t I not want to drink on some days and at some events and on other days enjoy a glass or two? At the exact same time I think this thought, I think about just how bad alcohol is for you and I question if it’s worth it.  I’m not sure I’ll come to concrete decision on this any time soon.  What I do know is that I have no desire to get drunk and drinking too much.  I know that I really just want a drink or two and that when I have too many it disrupts every aspect of my life for days after (sleep, work out, foggy brained, not showing up as a good mom or wife or business owner).
 
So, does wine bring me joy? Sometimes it does.  Other times it doesn’t.  And that’s all I know right now.

​What is joy? How does it feel? How do you know when you have or are experiencing it? Joy is a feeling that we are all striving for, yet there isn’t really a concrete answer to these questions.  Is it a feeling of contentment? Is joy an exciting feeling? Is it laughing or smiling all the time? Or is it just and easy feeling?  A feeling of peaceIs feeling content in our lives something that we are striving for? Contentment means that we aren’t really in a struggle, so is that joy? I have a hard time believing that contentment is something that we are striving to feel. I believe we want to feel more than just contentment.  
 
I’ve been struggling with joy.  I’m not sure I am feeling it.  I have moments where I think I feel joy but they are fleeting and I can’t figure out what brings the joy and what is stealing the joy.  Sometimes I feel joy after a good workout or when I hear a song I like.  Sometimes I experience joy when I  get a hug from my children or when I see them doing something sweet.  Other times I feel joy when I eat healthy and get a good night’s sleep.  I believe that my miscarriages and the continuous grief that came with them changed the chemistry in my brain.  However, that isn't the end of the road.  I know that I can re-wire my brain to experience joy again, it just takes time and effort. 
 
I’ve read all the books about what you are “supposed” to do to experience joy.  I practice my gratitude, I do my workouts, I experience nature.  But sometimes it doesn’t work. Why not? Is this part of life? Is this menopause? Am I just bored? Is joy connected to personality types? Does my husband experience more joy because he is more easy-going than I am? Or do I just feel more extreme of emotions?Is it normal to just not always feel joy? Sometimes we are happy and sometimes we just aren’t? I don’t know but I want to figure it out.  I know it isn’t possible to experience joy at all times, that that is just a story social media is feeding us.  If we always felt joy, how would we be able to recognize it? If we never experience grief or anger, how will we know when we are joyful? There needs to be some ups and downs.  
 
The largest and longest study shows that what brings happiness to people is community.  I do know that by becoming an entrepreneur I have actually secluded myself and cut myself off of community.  So how do I go about creating more community for myself?  And how much community is needed? I consider myself and extrovert/introvert.  I love being with people but I can also be drained by people.  So how much community is needed to feel happiness and not drained?
 
These are all of the emotions and questions I have been asking myself lately.  I intend to notice what is happening when I believe I am experiencing joy and take note of it.  My goal over the next year or so is to dive into joy.  I have been known as the grief girl for so long that I think I have taken on that identity and I really want to show that there is joy after grief.  You can experience such extreme pain AND experience joy again.  My goal with this blog/journal is not to gain followers.  My goal is to figure out what joy looks like for me and share that with you.  And if it’s something that resonates with you, awesome.  This won’t be the best writing you have read.  It most likely won’t be written every day, though it is my goal. I will be combining this with my work on helping women through grief after miscarriage as that is my passion. If it isn’t, that’s ok too, I’m not doing it for you.  I’m doing this for myself and my family.  Follow along if you like.

​For the last three years I have been known as the “Grief Girl”.  I have immersed myself in miscarriages and the grief surrounding them and helping women heal after this unique grief.  I am the person that people turn to when they don’t know what to say to someone who has had a miscarriage.  I am the person people turn to when they need support in some of the hardest parts of their life.  And I have fully taken on this role of “Grief Girl”.  However, there’s another side to grief that isn't spoken about as much. And that is love.  Sometimes I struggle with identifying too much with the grief side and not enough of the love side.  I believe there needs to be a balance. There is no grief without love and there is no love without grief.  Moving forward, it is my goal to not just be the “Grief Girl” but to also be the “Love Girl”, the girl that has found love and joy and vibrancy after loss.

“The reality is that you will grieve forever. You will not ‘get over’ the loss of a loved one; you will heal, and you will rebuild yourself around the loss you have suffered. You will be whole again, but you will never be the same.” Elisabeth Kubler-Ross and David Kessler from “On Grief and Grieving”
 
If you’ve been through grief or have studied grief, you know that there are different stages of it, and they are very fluid.  When thinking about my miscarriages, and after talking to so many women who have been through such a terrible loss, I have come to realize that there is a similar process when it comes to the grief of losing a pregnancy.  I have put these into different phases and created ways to heal through each phase.
 
Can’t Stop the Bleeding- Phase 1: This is the complete and utter shock phase.  In this phase you are knocked over by the pain, both emotionally and physically, of the loss of your baby.  You never thought that you would be the 1 in 4.  You never thought that you would be the woman going through such excruciating pain and exhaustion, this happens to other women, not you.  In this phase, you are constantly asking yourself “why?”.  Why is this happening to you? Why would God or the universe put you through something so terrible? What did you do in your life to deserve such pain? Did I do something that caused this loss? Did I eat something wrong? Exercise too much? Exercise too little?  In this phase you are constantly reminded of what is being ripped from you every time you go to the bathroom.  During this process you are constantly talking to your baby, apologizing for not being able to create a safe place for it to grow and develop.  You hope and pray that your baby is not experiencing any of the pain that you are going through.  In short, you are in shock.
 
Healing: This is the time when you need to be very gentle with your body and with your emotions.  You need to curl up in bed with your tissues and just cry.  Let the pain and the emotions release from your body through your tears.  Don’t try to do anything too active at this point.  Protect your body and protect your emotions.  Put the phone down.  Stop the researching.  There isn’t an answer. I know how infuriating it is to hear from your doctor “these things just happen”.  That isn’t enough of an explanation for the pain you are experiencing but unfortunately it’s true.  You won’t find the answer on Google.  Find a friend.  Find one or two friends who are willing to listen to your story and not say anything stupid like “well, you can try again”.  It may be hard to find that person and it may come from someone unexpected.  If you are struggling with finding someone, reach out to groups on Facebook or join a community (I created the Miscarriage Warrior App for this purpose). But be careful with who you share your journey with.  Again, protect your body and your emotions.
 
“Now What?” Phase 2: This is the phase when the bleeding has stopped, most of the shock has worn off but you are left in this grief state of “now what?” “What am I supposed to do with this pain?” “Where am I supposed to go from here?”.  You begin wondering if you are supposed to start trying again.  You wonder if moving on means that the pain of your loss ever happened.  Is it cruel to just start trying again? You ask yourself “what did this all mean?” and “How did this experience change me as a person?”.  Sometimes you’re left in the wake of this pain wondering if you were supposed to learn something from this pain.  You want to feel happy again, you want to find your vibrancy again, but you aren’t quite sure how. You want to reconnect with your partner and have a deeper relationship but for some reason you keep pulling away. You’re back at work but you are exhausted and can’t focus. You start pulling away from your friends because they don’t understand that you are still experiencing the grief. 
 
Healing: During this time, I would really encourage you to take care of your physical energy and emotional energy.  This would be a good time to start going on short walks, preferably with that one friend who you can talk to.  Walking helps your body process stress and being with a friend helps you feel a sense of community.  Express your pain and grief through a creative way.  Write, dance, draw, paint, find something that will help you express and let out that pain.  You can create a memory box or a memory book or find a piece of jewelry to honor your baby’s life. This is also the time when I suggest finding a healing group or someone to help you with your healing.  This is the time that I found my coach who helped me explore and eventually answer all of my “what now?” questions.  A coach or therapist will help you explore the best ways to heal after such a traumatic event.
 
Guilt- Phase 3: Who knew you’d experience so much guilt after a miscarriage?  When you have made the decision that you are ready to move on and start trying again you may start feeling guilt. You feel guilty the first time you laugh, the first time you go through the day without crying.  You feel guilty that you didn’t mourn the loss of your baby long enough. You feel guilty that because you have decided to try again that you will forget about your loss (trust me, you won’t forget).  You feel guilty that you are taking too long to grieve.  If and when you do get pregnant again you feel guilty when you aren’t always ecstatic about the pregnancy.  For me, I was sick with all of my pregnancies and I felt guilty when I didn’t want to feel pregnant.  How could I not want to feel pregnant after everything I had been through.  Shouldn’t I just be happy that I was pregnant?
 
Healing: Unfortunately, guilt is a part of grief.  Try to remind yourself that everything you are going through is normal, that there is no “right” way to grieve or move one.  Try journaling about your feelings.  Put into words what is making you feel guilty and why you think you are feeling this way. Find other women who have experienced miscarriages and talk to them about the guilt you are feeling, I’m sure they will tell you that they felt the same way.  But it’s good to express these feelings so that you can address them and realize that moving on is normal.
 
Does This Grief Ever Go Away? - Phase 4: This is the phase when you have moved on with your life.  You are able to laugh again; you are able to feel joy again without feeling guilty but then every once in a while you randomly start crying.  You could be driving down the freeway, minding your own business when you pass the doctor’s office where you heard those awful words “There’s no heart beat”, when you break into tears.  You could be out on a date with your partner and just randomly start crying because you remember the pain you have both been through.  The short answer to “does this grief ever go away?” is no. No, it doesn’t and that really sucks.  The long answer is that you will feel normal again.  You will go back to “normal” again, but normal may look different now.  The loss and the pain will be a part of you forever and be part of your life story now. 
 
Healing: Don’t ignore this phase.  Don’t ignore the pain that you went through and try to pretend it didn’t happen.  Learn to be ok with your grief, hold hands with it and use it to help other people.  This is the time to continue growing as a person.  As human beings we are built to be in community and to find connection.  Continue finding a group of people who understand you and what you have been through.  Continue connecting with others in ways that feel good to you.  Not everyone wants to use the pain of a miscarriage to help others.  Not everyone wants to discuss the experience with the whole world and that is absolutely ok.  However, do use your knowledge of grief and pain to be understanding of others instead of judging.  Do use this pain to lend support when you see someone struggling with grief so that they don’t have to go at it alone.  In other words, “turn around and help the person behind you”.
 
Please note that through every phase I suggest finding someone to talk to, someone to connect with.  In the midst of grief, it is our nature to pull back, to pull away from people and isolate ourselves.  This is natural.  But it is also natural to be with people.  Our society has told us that we should grieve in silence but in reality, it is better for our healing to be with community.  There are times when you should absolutely take time away and let yourself cry.  But don’t stay in that. Asking for help isn’t being a burden to others, people naturally want to help others.  Again, if you need a place to turn or don’t feel supported by your friends, come to The Miscarriage Warrior App.  You will find a community of women who have been through the pain and who are going to support you through your journey, without judgment.

“The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.” –Mark Twain
 
I wanted to find that joy.  That thing that made me get out of bed and dance my way to the coffee pot every morning. We hear it over and over again, follow your passion and it will lead you to success.  Every time I heard this, I would question myself “why didn’t I know what my passion was?” and “how can I follow my passion if I don’t know what it is?, I guess I’ll never be successful”. I started believing that I was going to live my life in this rut, in this hamster race, just going through the motions and not really finding joy or connection.  Honestly, I had really given up on finding my passion and believed that I didn’t have one, until devastation tore my world apart.  It was almost like the universe was screaming at me to look at my life, to really start analyzing what parts of it I loved and what aspects I needed to move on from.
 
In between having our two sons, my husband and I went through the excruciating pain of experiencing four miscarriages.  During these difficult times, I was so overcome with grief and questions, that I couldn’t see how this was affecting my life.  Two years after our second son was born, we experienced two more miscarriages, the fifth one being absolutely gut wrenching because it had been further along.  It was at this time that I really started asking “why?”.  Why was God or the universe putting me through so much pain?  I knew there was a message I was supposed to get, but I wasn’t really sure what it was. 
 
This was the time that I really started exploring personal development.  I needed a way to get out of this pain that I had been experiencing for 4 years.  I needed to know that there was more to life than just going through the motions.  But still, I didn’t know my passion.  I didn’t know what it was that I wanted to pursue that was going to bring me success or make me feel alive again.  My main questions were “What the f*ck do people mean when they say follow your passion?” and “How can I find my passion?” 
 
I used to love to ride horses, but I didn’t want to do that for a living. I used to love to run.  I started reconnecting with my love of running, but that still wasn’t bringing me the fulfillment that I yearned for.  I used to love to write, but how could I use this to help others and feel connected? My coach and I discussed how I could integrate writing into my life and how I could use it to help others.  This developed into me creating a blog to help other women who had experienced pain through miscarriages.  However, this wasn’t helping women to get out of that funk, it wasn’t helping them to reconnect with themselves and their joy.  It was at this point that I discovered that I wanted to be a life coach so that I could develop the tools necessary to help others. And I loved it! Like, I truly loved it.  I don’t just do it to make money, I do it because it sparks something in me, it lights me up inside! 
 
But I couldn’t stop at that.  I needed to know why.  Why did I want to write? Why did I want to coach?  What had lit that fire inside of me?  Had I always had that and forgotten about it?  The answer to that is complicated.  Yes, I had always enjoyed writing and just hadn’t done anything about it.  And yes, I had always liked helping people, hence me becoming a teacher.  But it wasn’t until I had experienced the worst pain I had ever known, that I realized my why.   My why for starting my blog, for sharing my story. My why for wanting to become a life coach, was to ensure that no one ever felt alone in the grief process.  I wanted to help people through that pain and show them that they could come out of it even happier. 
 
The moral of the story is that not everyone knows their passion when they are born.  It’s a term that is thrown around a lot that can be intimidating and make you feel insignificant because you haven’t figured out your passion.  So, here’s my advice to you, curtesy of Tom Bilyeu: “go out and try shit”. See what sticks.  But don’t stop there. Once you figure out what you love, figure out why you love it.  Cause you aren’t always going to be motivated to do the work. You need to have a very deep why, a why that will get you out of bed every day and make you want to dance to the coffee pot because you are so inspired. 

​I avoid the doctor, specifically my gynecologist.  I haven’t always been this way, I used to be very diligent about my yearly appointments.  I’m sure any therapist can look at my past and immediately see why I would specifically avoid the gynecologist, and even I logically know why I steer clear of that office, but I don’t think I really faced it until just recently.  I was listening to a podcast about grief and one of the statements that really stuck with me was that we need to sit in the pain and walk through the pain in order to heal.  I have read this before but hadn’t really applied it fully to my life.  I’ve known that working through the pain of our miscarriages was important in order to really recover from it and be able to help others through the struggle.  What I didn’t face was the fact that there were aspects of that pain that I wasn’t experiencing, almost like different rooms of the pain that I was avoiding.  Imagine that the pain of the miscarriages were the main rooms of the house, but there were parts of the house that I really didn’t need to visit every day and therefor completely ignored.  That’s how the doctor was for me.  A part of the house that I hadn’t visited in a very long time because it brought me too much pain, it was the epicenter of the pain.  So, I just closed the door and pretended it didn’t exist.  Except, by my own definition and definition of experts on how to recover from grief, I wasn’t really walking through it, I wasn’t feeling the pain and recovering, I was avoiding.  Anyone who has experienced a traumatic event, or multiple traumatic events in my case, can understand why you would want to avoid the scene of the crime. Even my doctor understood.  After my last miscarriage, he looked at me and told me not to come back for a while, that he didn’t want to see me.  He explained that I needed to heal and that returning to the office would just cause more trauma, almost like PTSD.  I took his advice whole heartedly, and maybe took it too far.  I ended up taking 2 years off of going to the doctor. 
Friends! We need to sit in the pain, the grief.  We need to feel it and face it, in order to really heal.  Closing the door to that room and pretending it isn’t there isn’t going to help, it isn’t going to help you grow as a person.  Currently, we are collectively, as a world, sitting in a lot of grief and loss.  And in our nation, we are grief stuck.  We don’t like to face the pain and sit in it.  We like to close the door and pretend it isn’t there.  I guess the question is, how do we know if we are avoiding the pain? I look at my life and see what activities am I actively avoiding?  In my circumstance, this is the doctor.  It’s time I face my fear and go back to the doctor and sit in that room and let myself heal.  What room are you avoiding?  What room do you need to open the door to and sit in, in order to really feel your discomfort and grief so that you can truly recover?

​It hit me like a ton of bricks.  It was one of those “AHA” moments that immediately made me cry.  I had been listening to an interview by David Kessler, the co-author of “On Grief and Grieving” and the author of “Finding Meaning, The Sixth Stage of Grief” when this “AHA” moment struck me. Kessler was being interviewed about grief and loss and was discussing the interviewer’s loss.  Before continuing the conversation, Kessler asked the interviewer the name of the person that had passed away.  He explained that he did this because it is so important to name the person instead of just referring to him or her as a loss.  This is when it hit me. This is the difference between the loss of a human that had lived a life and the loss of a baby that had never been born.  There wasn’t a name.  My six losses never had a name or a face. Because there wasn’t a name, other people had not made a connection to this life.  And because other people had not formed that connection, they tended to have interesting reactions and responses to the pain of a miscarriage. This gave people the permission to say things like “well, it wasn’t meant to be” or “be grateful for what you have” or “just try again”.  People don’t say those things to someone after a death.  No one says at a funeral “well, it just wasn’t meant to be”.  I knew this, I’ve known it for 5 years.  I knew that people responded weirdly to miscarriages, but I couldn’t figure out why.  The life, the baby, didn’t have a name.  We hadn’t put that significance on the life yet.  We hadn’t experienced or created memories yet.  Except we had, hadn’t we?  For those that have been through the pain, you know this to be true. You know that you had named it, you had made memories with it.  Maybe those weren’t official names, but you had immediately started thinking of names, you had immediately put an identity on the life.  And maybe you hadn’t experienced memories with the baby, but you had imagined a life and the memories you would make together.  You had the memory of learning you were pregnant.  You had the memory of your body changing from a life growing in you, but you didn’t have the memories created once the life was born.  To others, there wasn’t a name.   Those memories weren’t imagined by anyone else.  So, they say things like “it wasn’t meant to be”, or “just try again”.  These people don’t realize the pain they are inflicting with their words, they really are just trying to be supportive and helpful, but they didn’t see the imagined life that we saw. 
Where do we go with this information? We learn, we grow ,and we teach.  If you know someone who is going through a miscarriage or has been through a miscarriage (because that loss and pain is never gone), talk to them.  Keep in mind that this baby DID have a name. I think about some of my friends who made me felt heard when going through my miscarriages and the one thing they had in common was that they acknowledged that they didn’t know what to say but that they were so sorry for the pain I was in and were there to listen.  Please DO NOT discount their pain because it is a pain you do not understand.  That life and baby had a name in their momma’s heart.

​I walked into the house, looked around and immediately started yelling at Joe.  I was pissed! How come I couldn’t go to my office (my she-shed in my backyard) for just one hour without coming back to the house looking like a total shit show? How the hell was I supposed to get anything done with my own business if I couldn’t leave for just an hour or two?  These are the things I yelled at my husband.  He was at a total loss.  He didn’t know where this was coming from. We had been in Shelter in Place for a week and half and I hadn’t had a break down, yet.  I hadn’t cried, I hadn’t been upset, I had just powered through.  I instantly took on the new role of being the home-school teacher and the stay at home mom.  A role, that I had never wanted.  I had JUST quit teaching because I knew I wanted something different in my life. I knew I wanted to help other women find themselves and know that there IS more to this life than just going through the motions.
 
I didn’t realize until a few days later why I had been so upset with my husband.  I didn’t realize why I resented the fact that he was able to work his job when I was suddenly putting my dreams on hold.  When shelter in place started, I immediately thought “well, Joe makes the money right now, and with the market dropping, we need him to continue to make the money, so I’ll be the home-school teacher and I’ll embrace it with joy”.  And that’s when I lost myself. Again!  Why, as women, do we do this to ourselves? Why do we put our dreams and our wants on the back burner in order to make everyone else feel good?  Do the kids need someone to teach them while they are home? Yes? Does Joe need time to work his job, so we continue to get a paycheck? Yes.  But that doesn’t mean my dreams are put on hold or that I need to lose my identity at the same time.  And that doesn’t mean that everything I’ve learned over the last two years, about how to live into my dreams, needs to be thrown out the window.  And the thing is, Joe never expected these things of me.  I put these expectations on myself. Why? How? Because, in our society we are taught that it isn’t lady like to continue to work on your own dreams while your kids are home and needing you.  It’s considered selfish to not want to be the home-school teacher.  Maybe this sounds harsh.  Maybe it sounds jarring.  I agree.  It is.  And I’m not saying to just ignore this situation and the pain that it may be causing your children at this time.  Right now, our whole family needs to be a family unit and be there for each other in our greatest time of need.  However, what I am saying is that we, as moms, can’t ignore our needs as well.  We need to take time to grieve.  We need to take time to adjust to the new normal.  We also need to figure out how to not throw our dreams away during this time and how to still be true to ourselves.  We need to figure out how to realize that chasing our dreams, even during a pandemic, is not considered selfish. 
 
For the first week of quarantine, I embraced it all.  I used all my tools and motivation to stay happy and full of joy. I think I was still in the first stage of grief at this point “denial”.  By the second week, I wasn’t as consistent, I was more “hit and miss”.  What do I mean by that? One day I felt great and then the next day I felt exhausted and just wanted to lay in bed and watch Hallmark Christmas movies.  I was grieving; but I didn’t know it.  I was grieving the loss of my dream and the routines that I had established.  I was grieving the fact that everything around us was changing and it was hard.  And I couldn’t talk about it because that isn’t lady like.  We aren’t supposed to grieve. We are supposed to be strong and not actually admit that we don’t always have our shit together.  What if, during these hard times, especially in these hard times, being the “good mom” and the “good wife” actually means living INTO your dreams and taking time for ourselves?  What if it means stepping up and being your true self?  What if that looked different for every mom and wife?  What if that means some of us are truly amazing at home schooling our kids? Or that some of us are rock stars at making the schedules and art projects for our children? But what if it also meant that some of us aren’t rock stars in that arena but are amazing at being entrepreneurs? Or are awesome at running a business? Or have a skill at bringing people together in hard times? What if being a “good mom”, meant that we teach our children how to be true to themselves by watching us be true to ourselves?  
 
How do we do this? How do we create time to chase our dreams when we might be lacking in time or space?  This has been my biggest challenge and something that I have had to play around with.  I can’t tell you what type of schedule will work for you, that is something you are going to need to tweak.  For me, it means that when Joe is finished with work, I go to our room and work on my projects.  Sometimes that looks like actual work and sometimes that looks like meditation or just reading a good book. I also take more time on the weekends to escape to my office to really focus on things that make me happy or bring me joy.  I try to use this time to connect with my friends (zoom happy hours) or to just be in a quiet environment without any type of connection to news or social media.  I spend a lot of time working on keeping my inner peace.  These are the ways that I have been able to stay connected with myself and my dreams. Your schedule may look a little different, but I do urge you to find a way to stay connected to your true self.  I hope, as women, we are able to find a way to create a safe, nurturing environment for our family, as well as creating a safe, nurturing environment for ourselves. 

Uugghhh!! I’m being so dramatic!!! No, I didn’t actually leave my family.  Well, I did, but I came back.  And it wasn’t the type of leaving where I storm out of the house, slamming the door, upset that no one ever listens to me.  I would never do that. :)  No, this was the type of leaving that I would consider self-care.  The kind that everyone needs in order to re-group, re-focus and re-center your life.
 
After the holidays, my son’s birthday and Joe being out of town, I was starting to feel out of sorts.  I hadn’t had a chance to sit and plan out my year or figure out where I wanted to go with my life.  I had changed careers, was starting a new business but hadn’t really stopped to think what was next.  So, I left.  I knew this meant my family would have to make some adjustments while I was gone, but I also knew that my husband is fully capable of taking care of the kids. When my boys asked why I was leaving I told them “Because it’s important that mommy take some time to herself.  And I need to think about how I want to grow my business”. I think this is one of the most important lessons I could teach my children.  First, it’s important to take care of yourself and take time to decompress.  Second, their mommy is building a business.  I want them to know that women are just as capable of building a business as men.  But the lessons I learned from leaving were not the lessons I had expected to learn.
 
When I scheduled the day away, I really did so in order to get away and be pampered.  I had convinced myself that a spa day is what my brain needed in order to relax.  So, I had the mimosa.  I splurged on the massage.  I sat in the in the sauna.  Was this relaxing? In a way, yes.  There weren’t children following me everywhere.  No one was needing my attention at all times.  But I still felt anxious.  Almost like “well, I’m here at the spa. Relax! Now!!”  I felt like I had an obligation to be relaxed and if I wasn’t there was something wrong with me.  I decided to go on a walk.  I brought my notepad to journal, even though I HATE journaling.  I’ve never been a person who journals.  But I had heard that sometimes you just need to write down everything that comes to your mind. I found a courtyard, got another mimosa (I mean, why deny myself that joy), and just started writing. Honestly, I didn’t even know what I had wanted to write about but suddenly I had written five pages.  Five pages!!! The next morning, I did the same thing.  And I wrote three more pages!  My hand couldn’t keep up with my brain.  I realized that I hadn’t connected with nature in a very long time. I hadn’t sat in silence and just listened to the birds or watch the clouds for years.  Years!! Here’s the thing.  Your body craves nature.  It needs fresh air and stillness in order to be healthy.  It literally lowers your blood pressure, heart rate and muscle tension. My brain hadn’t felt so alive in a long time.  By the time I got home, I was so relaxed and ready to be a patient, loving wife and mom again.
 
Yes, a spa visit is very nice to help aid relaxation.  But it isn’t needed.  Want to relax but can’t afford to jaunt off to a spa? Go outside! Take a hike.  Literally.  And you guys, I’m not so oblivious that I don’t realize a lot of you are single parents and are barely holding it together.  Finding time to take a hike or sit in nature seems like a crazy stretch.  Bring the kids.  Yes, you’ll still hear them and there might be whining, but kids love nature.  Bring a notepad.  You can journal and the kids can draw what they see.  Or better yet, ask your friends for help!! I have no idea what it’s like to be a single parent, but I can tell you this, when Joe is out of town, I find myself spiraling.  Knowing this, I would jump at any chance I had to help a single parent friend out.  I’d gladly take your kids for a few hours so you can get away and regroup.  Don’t be afraid to ask for help.
 
Moral of the story, you need to take time for yourself.  We’ve convinced ourselves that this looks like getting our nails done, getting a massage or going to the spa.  But it doesn’t have to cost us money to reconnect.  Go outside! Sit in some quiet time.  You’ll be a better mom, wife and business owner (even if that business is CEO of your household).  

Grief is not a competition.  This may sound obvious when stated like this but let me explain why it’s a phrase that is important to remember.  A little while back, I received an email stating that I was being insensitive by referring to my “6 miscarriages” (yes, this person put it in quotes as if I had made up the number) in my social media posts.  She stated that there are other people who have suffered through more miscarriages and worse loss than I had and that I should stop talking about it (harsher words and phrases were used, but this is my PG version).  At first I was angered by this and had to stop and think about what I had written. It hadn’t been easy for me to put my story out there for everyone to read.  It wasn’t easy to be so vulnerable and re-live the trauma.  It also wasn’t easy for my husband to have to re-read it all and see it all in writing.  But when we decided, as a couple, to share our story, we knew there was a reason.  We had been through so much and through all of it, there really weren’t a lot of people to turn to.  I never wanted anyone to feel alone when having to go through such pain.  So I made it my mission to take what I had learned and help support those behind me.  How could someone read what I was putting out there and think that I was being insensitive? How could someone read about my real losses and think “she hasn’t experienced enough pain in order to help anyone”.  But then it was pointed out to me by two of my friends that grief is not a competition.  How many miscarriages would I need to have suffered through in order for me to be an “expert” on it and feel that I could help someone? How much suffering does one person need to experience in order to be considered competent enough to talk about grief? How does a person quantify someone else’s grief?  Are there other people who have been through a lot worse than I have? Absolutely!!! I have never once thought to myself that my pain is worse than someone else’s.  When a friend turns to me for help because she is suffering through her first miscarriage, I don’t think to myself “well, this doesn’t actually count as pain because you’ve only had one”.  It doesn’t matter how much pain or loss someone has experienced, it is still grief and no one has the right to judge someone else’s grief. 
 
 The next day, as I was overanalyzing this email and wondering what I was supposed to learn, I almost spit out my coffee.  Like, coffee almost came spilling out of my nose when I had a huge AHA moment.  I had just come back from one of the best experiences of my life.  I had spent an entire week surrounded by amazing human beings trying to achieve amazing goals.  I had just been certified as a High Performance Coach by Brendon Burchard and I was on a total high.  It was the end of a year where I had pushed myself into unfamiliar situations in order to grow as an individual and as a business owner.  I have learned over and over again that when you start on a new journey, and there is push back, it is the universe making sure that you are prepared to face the mountain in front of you.  That when you start a new project, not everyone is going to agree with it, but that’s ok, those people aren’t the ones that need to hear your voice.  That when you talk about something hard but true, there will be push back.  So, while drinking my coffee and overanalyzing this email I had received, it hit me like a truck!!! This!!!! This hard stuff that I’m talking about, miscarriages, loss, grief, this is what needs to be talked about MORE!! Our society is so uncomfortable with grief and talking about hard things.  Did you know that up until the 1920’s and 30’s, our society was completely fine and open with grief.  It was a part of daily lives.  Death wasn’t a shunned conversation because most families comforted the dying in their homes.  People weren’t going to hospitals as much and medicine wasn’t as advanced, so death was just part of the culture.  But in the 1930’s, there was a change, a switch in how we looked at life.  At this time people started thinking that only the good things should be talked about (and here we are thinking this idea started with the development of social media. Nope!).  Grief and death were swept under the rug and were no longer topics people discussed.  And now our culture has no idea how to face it.  And I’m one of the worst.  When my best friend’s mom died, I had no idea how to help her. I didn’t know what to say to her and her family, so I just kept busy helping with her kids and doing the dishes.  I was so uncomfortable with being around grief, that I just froze every time it was presented to me.  So when I got this email about how insensitive I was being by talking about my miscarriages, it dawned on me that our culture doesn’t know how to respond to pain.  That when we see someone talking about it and trying to help other’s through it, it literally repels them.  So guess what? I’m going to keep talking about it.  I’m going to keep reading about grief.  I’m going to keep studying how to help others through grief.  I’m going to keep researching grief and miscarriages. Am I doing this to be insensitive to others? No, quite the opposite actually.  I’m doing this in order to help when someone experiences a loss.  I’m doing it to help you if you don’t know how to be there for someone who may need you during a hard time.  I’m doing it so that our society can stop thinking that life is only about the good times.  Everyone experiences grief.  Don’t judge someone else’s loss and how they react to it, it isn’t a competition.