The Breathing Spaces Blog

Tough Losses and Emotional Safety Nets

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Ice Flower Under Soap Bubble

I have had conversations with many people lately who are going through rough patches with their health while caring for someone else and feeling great uncertainty in the world as a whole.

There is no question that Covid has flipped us around into a new world. The emotional effects are looming underneath like an earthquake tremor here in California, and it erupts without notice. When you add additional emotional trauma, an energetic bomb is waiting to go off.

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Calming Your Inner Critic

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I ask you to pause and think about this statement: The weight of responsibility that we place on ourselves and the forgiveness we don’t give. We all fumble at times in our lives. We’ve had words that flew out of our mouths under duress because we’ve exhausted ourselves. We’ve experienced anger, impatience, fear – all big emotions that can overwhelm our sanity – it happens to all of us. Those words/thoughts can be directed toward others as well as us.

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Caregiving and Gratitude

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Heart on leaves

As the holidays near, I can’t help but think of the relatives who won’t be with us as we celebrate Thanksgiving next week, and the other holidays that follow soon after: Hanukkah (we’re a multicultural family), Christmas, the New Year. But while my surface thoughts are about the individual people, I find that a deeper dive leads to what I learned from them, and what they taught me about gratitude.

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Finding Your Way in Transitions, Part 2 of 3: The In-Between Stage

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The Inbetween by bastien-nvs-R7EfLoHHpPk-unsplash

In this second part we’ll look at the In-Between stage. For caregivers it is the space between what was and what will be. Suzanne Braun Levine calls this space the Fertile Void and describes it as, “the long, slow, deep breath -the gathering in of strength – that precedes a daring leap into the unknown.”

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Holidays and the Eye of the Emotional Hurricane

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Emotional Hurricane

Much like a tornado, the storm of overwhelm can rage up from nowhere and blow you off your feet. Much like a hurricane the emotions and energy that occur when we are near our breaking point are powerful and chaotic. Becoming in tune with our feeling – emotional, physical, and spiritual – is a crucial balancing mechanism providing the early warning signal that tells us things are mounting up. As with intense weather systems, it is critical that we prepare: we must find that balance before the emotional storm takes over. 

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