![\"\"](\"https:\/\/thechallengecoach.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Flags.jpg\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nNow, back to the real<\/em> theme of the month: March 20th also happens to be 'International Day of Happiness' \u2013 and what better theme for a newsletter than Happiness!? We were full steam ahead with working on a happiness newsletter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then\u2026 March 5th happened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n March 5th 2011 is when my late husband, Steve, died of cancer. Meaning this year was the tenth anniversary of his death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n How to write a newsletter on happiness when grief was such a big presence for Steve\u2019s children and myself this month? I decided to, this month, share and honor the grief (and hopefully help some of you do the same) before, next month, switching to the other side and visiting happiness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I thought it would also be a relevant topic since so many of us are affected by grief brought on by the pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As I was pondering grief, I remembered something that I have repeated so often to my girls that it ended up in the Mama Jar<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWith great love comes great pain\u2026\u201d<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n And since love was the theme of our last newsletter<\/a>, all of this is starting to make sense\u2026 <\/p>\n\n\n\n As a coach, I often work with people who are going through grief. Maybe it has something to do with \u201cit takes one to know one\u201d\u2026<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Grief, by the way, is not only an emotion we feel when we have lost someone. It is also an emotion we feel \u2013 way more often that we might realize \u2013 when we experience any kind of loss: I experienced enormous grief when I left my entire life behind in Europe at age 26, as I emigrated to the United States to be with Steve, even though it was such a joyous reason for leaving. I experienced grief when we moved from Boston to the Washington DC area and I had to quit my job and leave behind the American life I had made for myself in beautiful New England. I was surprised to experience grief when my expatriate European friends would leave to go back home. I experienced profound grief when my second daughter left for college and I found myself an empty nester and home alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When I work on grief with my clients, we often work around the five stages of grief developed by Elisabeth K\u00fcbler-Ross (a Swiss-American Psychiatrist pioneer in near-death studies) in her book \u201cOn death and dying\u201d: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance (DABDA). In her book she shares how people with terminal illnesses seem to go through some of these stages (not necessarily in order and not necessarily one at a time either). She and her colleague David Kessler, who worked with her for many years and builds on her legacy thanks to the Elisabeth K\u00fcbler-Ross Foundation<\/a> he leads, later discussed that the EKB five stages of grief might also apply to people who lost a loved one. I certainly recognize the five stages, and know that I have gone through them back and forth, up and down, one at a time or all together, over and over and over again through the years. Of course more intensely the first few months and years after Steve\u2019s death, and then slowly (SLOOOOWLY) less often, less intensely, less painfully as time passed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I was fascinated to find out that David Kessler eventually came out with a sixth stage in his book of the same name: \u201cFinding Meaning\u201d. He explains that it's finding meaning beyond the stages of grief described above that can transform grief into a more peaceful and hopeful experience. Which interestingly, Shirzad Chamine also discusses in his \u201cPositive Intelligence\u201d <\/a>book as the Sage Perspective: one of the examples he gives of finding meaning is by citing the story of Candy Lightner who created MADD, Mom Against Drunk Driving, days after her 13-year old was struck and killed by a drunk driver.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the latest issue of Psychotherapy Networker<\/a>, which honors its founder - Rich Simon - who recently died by suicide, David Kessler is interviewed by Ryan Howes and confirms what I used to tell my girls to try to help them understand and cope with their grief:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cLove and grief are a package deal; you can\u2019t have one without the other. You can avoid grief, but then you\u2019re going to have to avoid loving [\u2026]. Most people don\u2019t want to make the journey of life without love. And at its heart, grief and pain are part of love. Grief is what love looks like after the death. There are processes we go through in grieving, whether we talk about them as stages or tasks or milestones, but I don\u2019t think we ever let go. Instead, we find acceptance bit by bit. There\u2019s no end point to grief.\u201d<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Oh \u2013 how I can relate to these words. I am sure many of you can, as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ryan Howes answers Kessler: \u201cThat sounds painful\u201d.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n To which David Kessler replies:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI try to remind people not to give death any more power than it has. I don\u2019t believe that love dies when someone dies. [\u2026] We knew how to love the people we\u2019ve lost when they were physically present-and the work now is to love them in their absence.\u201d<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n We, Steve\u2019s children and myself, have been learning to love him in his absence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I know that I have also been trying to find meaning through my grief by trying to live 'for' him in some ways (by continuing to raise his daughters as I imagine he would have wanted them to be raised, or by joining the board of the Sodexo Stop Hunger Foundation he founded, to help carry on his legacy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I also live my daily life often wondering: \u201cWhat would Steve say or do?\u201d Sometimes I do that, and sometimes \u2026 I don\u2019t! (same as I used to when he was still around!). In all these ways, I have been able to find meaning through my grief.<\/p>\n\n\n\n How have you found meaning through your grief?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I hope you have taken something useful away from this. If I can help you further to process grief you may be experiencing, please do just get in touch<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It doesn\u2019t feel quite right to tackle the theme of happiness just yet. But next month, I will certainly be ready to go \u201cover the rainbow\u201d to the other side \u2013 happiness! I hope you will join me then to explore this topic together\u2026it will be April Fool\u2019s Day after all!<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSomewhere over the rainbow![\"\"](\"https:\/\/thechallengecoach.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Family.jpg\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
Bluebirds fly<\/strong>
And the dreams that you dream of<\/strong>
Dreams really do come true\u2026<\/strong>
Someday I'll wish upon a star<\/strong>
Wake up where the clouds are far behind me<\/strong>
Where trouble melts like lemon drops<\/strong>
High above the chimney tops that's where<\/strong>
You'll find me, oh\"<\/strong><\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n