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My Story

Ok – Who am I?

Every Widow has a story. Every widow I meet, help, or connect with wants to know FIRST – Is She Like Me? Does she REALLY Get it? Can she REALLY Help me?

Yes. I am. I can. Here is my story.

My husband passed away very suddenly – no warnings, no planning…no goodbyes. 

Random head injury. He literally “just tripped”. He’d been playing with the kids, running backward in a relay race – on Easter Sunday in 2009. His head injury instantly gave him an hour, 2 at most, left to live.

 I became an instant single mom, and 27- year-old widow in about 45 minutes flat, that day.

Suddenly  I was no longer able to afford my home on my single income. I had to move back home with my parents, kids in tow, like a returned mail-order-bride. Even with that support system,  I felt homeless without Jason. He WAS my home.

I became barely functional for my 18 month and 6 year old, very dependent on my parents. My oldest needed therapy and my youngest wailed for his dad. They both clearly were going through something I couldn’t fix… which broke my heart every day.

Bills, benefits, and  social security paperwork piled up.

I began suffering anxiety attacks. Badly. Suddenly I was battling postpartum depression, grieving, serial dating, self medicating, counselor/doctor hopping .. and I’d be laid off from my job 6 months into my crazy upside down widow life.

I’ll never forget the moment when I decided it was time to ACT, and turn off the “autopilot”.

It was the end of year 2 being a widow, and I’d finally  settled on a counselor. She had said some things that were beginning to sink in. Things about controlling what you CAN, and what you REALLY have the power to create.

That’s when it HIT me. She had been trying to tell me this:

My ship may have been WAY  off course – but I still had the wheel. 

Even in my “crazy” widow state – I STILL had control over SOME things. I could STILL, realistically change my life, my mindset, and rebuild my core. I could create a new, NEXT me – with a foundation to that NO DEATH could ever take away from me again. 

But HOW? And where to START? And what about MONEY?

Before I could ask her, SHE died. Pancreatic Cancer. It took her very quickly. I was on my own.

I took what she said and went to work on a plan. She would not die in vain. Her words had changed me.

I developed a system that decluttered my crazy mom-life, gave me back my focus and clarity and created a NEW purpose.  I even figured out how to support my children and save for college – and got all my crazy benefit/tax/mortgage mayhem resolved. 

Today I am GLOWING. I didn’t just “get a new man and move on”. I didn’t just vent, pray, party, yoga or sleep it all away. I made a logical, simple, no-magic-or-surgery-required, MAP to rebuilding after loss. 

And now, truly living my dream life – fitting in where I belong, creating something no death can ever take from me. I am THRIVING in my purpose. I am committed to giving this map to every widowed mom out there who is ready to do the same!

This is my story… My WHY… my Purpose and PASSION!!!

If you’re ready to rebuild – move forward … and BE THAT #NEXTYOU… START Here.

I’m HERE for YOU!!! Let’s build it TOGETHER.

Coping With Post Loss Anxiety: There’s More To the Story #DearWidow

Your anxiety is understandable.
You feel out of control, like you’re missing things, and out of sync with the whole world.
You might feel like slightly selfish for wanting to be free of the burdens of adult-ing for a little while.

Anxiety comes from feeling out of control…and playing a narrative in your head that you’ve accomplished nothing, you’re overwhelmed and have no idea where to start. It feels lazy and pitiful and hopeless and you just wish you could press reset – back to when things were normal.

Just. Breathe.

First of all… nobody has control over how their story goes, ends, or begins again. Its all  a free fall. That’s not comforting. What IS comforting to ME is that, I can regain control by changing the narrative to point out what I CAN do in my response, or evidence of what HAS worked in the past. If it means I need to stop, breathe, and make a concerted effort to remembering the GOOD, doing something positive in response, or resolving to just make new goals from the broken pieces of the last goals… so be it.  What is also helpful is to stop using ONLY the bad parts of my situation of widowhood… and every “down” I experience hereafter to define ME. I define me. The GOOD stuff – the wins, the triumphs, the times things DIDN’T go all to hell – they happened too! It took ALL of the things, good and bad, to make up my story. ALL of them helped me see what defines me.


What is also helpful is to stop using my situation of widowhood… and every “up and down” I experience hereafter to define ME. …
It took ALL of the things, good and bad, to make up my story. ALL of them helped me see what defines me.


And then there’s the worrying and the imagining of horrible outcomes being a survivor of death. The worst use of imagination is worry. Worrying is for people with time to waste. Because that’s all it is. A waste of time. Its hard to enjoy anything anymore because you worry its going to be taken away, like your husband was. You don’t want to love anyone else or start anything new because whats the point?! I get it. You’re worried that rug is going to get pulled out from under you again. And that’s understandable.

When Jason died I blamed myself for not being outside playing with him and the kids at the time. If I’d been out there ….. you know the rest. When my son got a D on his report card, I labeled myself an inattentive mom and got angry at myself. When my other son got pneumonia I felt helpless and worried incessantly… maybe I wasn’t giving him meds enough or using the humidifier. Why do I have HAVE children – one day they are just gonna go – just like everything else… and on and on…


But….even though THOSE are the parts that replay in your head and keep you up at night – that’s not all there is to the narrative!

Faith is an interesting thing. We use it for everything. We have faith that if we flap our arms we wont fly. Faith that pain hurts and bad things happen. Faith that tragedy and mayhem are real and we cant control them. Faith that things live and then die. Because we have proof.

If that’s the case, what about when things go right? What about the countless amount of evidence we have that MOST of the things we worried so hard about yesterday – didn’t happen? And the day before that… and the year before that…. Why do we never use that as ammo for our anxiety? Regardless of if we worried or not – we still had to wait and see didn’t we? And sometimes, it does turn out OK. Probably just as many times if not more – than when it doesn’t, right? Where is our faith in the God that provides the GOOD times, too? Its like when the kids are mad at you for saying “no”. And you’re the worst mom ever. What about ALL the 50-eleven times you said yes!!! Dont you wish they remembered that? God wants you to remember THOSE things too.

You just cant live life getting rolled by “what ifs” and “maybes” and “what’s the points”. You are not made of your fears, your worries, or your current marital circumstance. You are MORE than that. Life is not only pain and suffering. You KNOW that. Play the GOOD times in that narrative too. Remember that YOU control who you are and what you do in response to all the things good or bad. You can decide what defines you, and how you get through ANY thing life throws at you. And regaining control of the narrative – THAT is the best weapon against anxiety.

Hang in there, dear widow. Keep pushing. We got this.

Sometimes…@#!#$!!! (Its Ok. Breathe Mama.) #MotivationMondays

I hate ants. Its not that they are the most terrifying species, or the creepy crawl-iest. Spider-crickets, black widows and flying roaches are by far more heinous, especially the latter. But ants, in the house, for some reason really gets under my skin. It feels like a personal failure; to see one merrily marching along the bathroom floor. Some sort of shortcoming in my ability to be a “good” mother despite my daily efforts toward an occasionally spotless home. Somehow worse than actual dirt, the ants imply an invisible dirtiness. As if only unimaginable amounts of sticky food-borne filth crammed into every crevice of every corner could result in the three to five busy ants I see and kill every single day for a month, as soon as the spring comes, every single year. And of course seeing one, in my mind, means there are thousands. A covert infestation teeming inside the walls, waiting to emerge from the cracks and flood your children’s ears in the night time. I’d imagine a plea bargain with the head ant queen to spare my babies. Please don’t flood their brains and make them suffer, they are innocent. I promise I wont kill anymore of yours from now on. Just don’t go after my kids… and then I’d sit up at night, spooked. Thinking of the terribly creepy things that probably weren’t happening to my kids right under my nose.

Sooo Yeah. All that from ants. My point in telling this story is : This isn’t “crazy”. Its wildly imaginative, and improbable. But not crazy. I’m willing to bet there are millions of moms across the world who have had thoughts like these. Moms have so much stress to deal with, are usually fatigued, overworked, and by nature, tend to be more passionate after having children. It stands to reason that at some point, deprivation of sleep, water, proper diet and exercise will begin to affect her mind a little. And that’s not “crazy”.. Why is it deemed normal for us to be sleep deprived and malnourished, yet abnormal to suffer the consequences? Why do we allow the world to tell us we need medication to fix what is obviously not a disease? It is not a disease of the mind to be tired or iron deficient. It is not a mental disorder to need a break. What IS a disease of the mind is to believe as a mother one must be willing to provide for everyone else except oneself. That’s crazy.

I say this to say, at some point, I started noticing the “crazy” for what it was. I stepped away from the GOOGLE, and started taking the REAL steps needed for taking inventory of myself.

I went to the doctor for a physical. I addressed all the ailments that gave me constant self consciousness and anxiety. Restless legs, fear of blood clots, anemia, joint pain, self diagnosed diseases from google, sinus migraines, sleep deprivation, excessive worry (i.e. the spring ants) etc. She checked me out,  listened carefully, and said something I didn’t expect.

“You had a baby.”

I blinked. I waited. “I know… “ I said weakly, “but… —

“No.” she said again. “You birthed 7 pounds of flesh, that from your own organs and fluid that is only supposed to support YOU, you created, shared, sustained, and brought to life, a thinking breathing, functioning, being – whose functions and complex systems often took precedence over YOUR OWN. And now that she is outside your body you are still nourishing her with your fluids, energy, and vitamins. Not only is this noble, incredible, selfless and amazing… it’s also exhausting to your system’s resources, hormones and emergency reserves. Not to mention impossible to do without compensating with some countermeasures…”

In other words – QUIT beating yourself up.

No you’re not crazy because you had a mental conversation with the queen ants. You’re tired and feeling guilty about not eradicating the ants and saving your children’s brains from invasion, and simultaneously guilty about mercilessly snuffing out life after ant life.. when all you REALLY want is to be a good mom AND get a good nights sleep. That’s not crazy. Whats crazy is that you can really make yourself sick worrying (And googling) instead of treating the symptoms.

Stop popping pills with every pain you get. Stop drinking weight loss shakes and starving yourself. Start thinking of how you can incorporate a healthy BREAK in your routine every now and then. And make a point to take care of YOU. Drink more water. DO the damn night time relaxation yoga routine once in a while. Yes, in the middle of the living room. SO what. Wear the hot pink tights too. We’ll be twinsieeeees. 🙂

#ITSOKAY #BREATHE

xo,

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