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Honor The Loss & Create Legacy

Honor The Loss & Create Legacy

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Hello & welcome to the Grief Unplugged podcast. I am your host, Heather D. Horton. Grief Unplugged is a podcast that frees professional women from the blockages of unresolved grief to find purpose in their pain so that they are able to embrace their new "normal" and sustain productivity at work and in life. In my three prior episodes, I have provided you with a vast toolkit of resources to begin shifting you from grief to a place of gratitude when you are ready. You know that giving yourself permission to grieve is fundamental to moving forward. Next, I showed you how to stand firm in your faith and face your fears because you are not inadequate as Marianne Williamson describes in her poem but you are greater than you could ever imagine because of where you are right now. We talked about what therapeutic support means and how you have to be intentional about it to support you on this journey. And lastly, you learned how to leverage your emotions, invite them to tea or your favorite non-alcoholic beverage and then escort them out the door and take back your power. Now, I want you to take the next step and start to transition from focusing on the death/loss you experienced to remembering and honoring the life of the person you loved or the thing or situation that no longer exists. Think about and focus on the essence of who your loved one was or what that special thing or experience meant to you, the values the person or thing instilled in you, the accomplishments gained by having experiences with that person or thing, the lessons learned, gifts shared, memories treasured and the legacy the person or thing left with you. When you begin to think about showing gratitude to a life lived or a situation experienced without someone prompting you to do so, you are beginning to shift yourself from grief to gratitude. Remember that the reason you grieve is because you loved that person, thing or situation. They added value to your life and validated you. Grief can also teach us something about life if we allow it to. Repeat. I believe that after listening to my prior episodes and really applying the principles I discussed in your life, you may now be more open to this revelation of honoring the loss. So, I want to ask you a question - What can you use or what did you take from the experience you gained after having spent time with that dear deceased loved one or dealing with that specific situation? Honoring the story about your loved one or your experience is synonymous with opening up to grief. When you are able to talk about it, healing occurs more successfully and rapidly. I want you to think of a way to deposit the value that you received from your loved one or experience into someone else's life to not only help them to move forward but also to help you move forward. There is a quote from Thomas Campbell that says to live in the hearts we leave behind is not to die. Repeat. If the memory that you cherished about the person or that thing still lives in your heart, that person still lives with you or there is still hope despite your situation. After my mother passed away, my sister and I sold her house and divided all my mother's remaining possessions amongst the two of us. We had given away tons of clothes, home goods, furniture, etc. but kept the things that were most sentimental to us. Among the items I kept were my mother's wedding gown and her wedding ring. I moved at least four times after her death but I never managed to let go of much of anything each time I moved. Normally when people move, they tend to declutter somewhat so that they can start afresh in the new space. That was not me. I wanted to hold on to my mother's things for as long as I could as a reminder of her and the memories we once shared. Instead of decluttering, I just always rented an apartment home large enough to accommodate my things and her things that I took from my childhood home. And I carried around those items for 10 years. Finally when I moved back to Washington, DC in December 2014, 9 years after my mother's passing, I felt it was time to determine if I really needed all the things I cherished from my family home so that I could begin to start to live in the present rather than the past. I specifically rented a space that was half the size I would normally rent to force myself to declutter to make space for other people and situations to come into my life. I became so overwhelmed by the lack of space and the amount of clutter and unpacked boxes around me that I hired a professional organizer in 2015 so I wouldn't lose my mind because I had to bring my A-game to work in this new position in the C-suite. When in doubt, hire a professional is my motto. Remember I said in an earlier episode that I realized my grief experience was God-orchestrated. Well, my organizer's mother worked in a ministry that collected old wedding gowns used to make funeral gowns for preemies ...
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