Tag Archives: depression

Emotional Challenges, Emotional Freedom Technique | EFT, Social Challenges, The Mary Mac Show, Wisdom

The Mary Mac Show | Living While Grieving

Leave a comment

The Mary Mac Show Podcast

In Episode 67, we explore how we isolate ourselves for much longer than is healthy and look at ways to allow ourselves to flourish again after a loved one’s death.

When we are in the depth of despair, it is very easy to become stuck.

We don’t want to go anywhere, do anything.

Instead just staying home and turning down invitations, events and gatherings with family and friends becomes commonplace.

We can get to a place where we aren’t even invited any longer.

But living in this state is not healthy. We aren’t meant to be alone which only exacerbates our situation.

Listen in to this episode and learn how to lift yourself out of this sad place.

It doesn’t mean you don’t love them.

It doesn’t mean you won’t always be close to them.

It means that you might just be ready to start reliving your life, bit by bit.

And you are entitled to.

You can live while grieving.

You can laugh, feel joy, go out with family and friends.

Explore the world again.

Decide this will be the day to reinvigorate yourself and try something new.

Bless you, my friend, my warrior!

xoxo

Additional Notes:

Visit Crisis Connections at my website to telephone a trained counselor to speak with whenever you are feeling overwhelmed, confused, frightened, fearful or any host of emotions.

Learn the Emotional Freedom Technique here for Stress and Overwhelm. It will soothe you and calm you physically and emotionally. Dr. Arianna also offers free guided-meditations which are wonderful.

You can watch Marissa Peer’s “I Am Enough” meditation.

Bach’s Rescue Remedy will calm and soothe you. Remember, it does have alcohol in if, if that is a concern for you.

Treat yourself to a lovely gift from our Heart of Gold “I Remember” Products from The Mary Mac Store.

Remember, a portion of all proceeds help fund The Foundation for Grieving Children, Inc., the first national non-profit public charity which benefits children, teens, young adults after a loved one’s death which I established many years ago.

And remember to sign up for my private list below, so we can always stay in touch. Since social media is no longer reliable, please complete the form below so I can connect with you via email.

Subscribe

* indicates required







Death of a Child, Grieving Children, Suicide

What Suicidal Depression Feels Like – Therese Borchard

Leave a comment

Yesterday, in my own community here in Lake Mary, Florida, not even a mile from me, a 14 year-old boy in our middle school went into a bathroom stall and shot himself to death. With the recent death of Robin Williams and the suicide deaths of so many whose parents and siblings I have worked with over the years, there is a great need to truly understand how depression wreaks havoc on an individual’s ability to reason.

Nothing comforts me more than when another writer has the guts to truly put it all out there. I have done this many times on my blog, telling the good, bad and ugly of the aftermath of death and, while it’s difficult to read and comprehend that humans feel and live through such crisis, it is very, very real and very honest and should never be taken lightly, either by family, friends and especially business colleagues, who are usually so busy they dismiss many emotions.

I know how difficult it is for those who love you to grieve a death by suicide. There are countless questions, self-blame, years of trying to recover, if it’s even possible, and the guilt, shame and anger. If you are even considering this and find yourself in a deep depression either because you yourself are now grieving the death of a loved one, or you are dealing with what seems like insurmountable challenges, please read Therese’s work below.

If you need to speak with someone, please go to “Crisis Connections.” Click on there for help in your area. Don’t be ashamed or embarrassed. You can remain anonymous. Let someone listen. You deserve to be heard. Continue reading What Suicidal Depression Feels Like – Therese Borchard →

Holidays

To Christmas or Not to Christmas – That is the Question

Leave a comment

Last evening as I was decorating and generally clearing away too many papers (perils of a writer), on the television came a 2002 Hallmark Channel movie entitled “A Christmas Visitor”.

It featured a couple whose son had been killed in the Gulf War and had received notification from the US Army on Christmas Eve. Consequently, over the last twelve years, it seems this family had decided to forgo any Christmas celebrations.

In the movie, the only surviving sibling, this young man’s sister, was dealing with surgery to remove a lump in her breast. At the time of her brother’s death it seemed she couldn’t have been more than 10 years old.

In a tender moment, she revealed to her Mother how she always felt unloved growing up because their family, unlike her friends’ families, never celebrated Christmas after her brother John’s death. She believed that by not putting up a tree, decorating the house, etc. that her parents were indirectly telling her that they loved her brother more than her.

Even the mother in the movie embraced the daughter and suddenly realized how selfish she had been in her own overwhelming grief that she hadn’t taken into account how it would affect her daughter or husband.

When we have lost a significant person in our lives, especially a child or a spouse, our tendency as adults is to concentrate so much on our own grief and to dismiss the needs of the surviving children and family members.

If you are in this position now and you are struggling with whether to completely forego all the festivities of this season, please think twice. It’s very easy to just crawl under the covers and just want to disappear, but there may be others in your life who count on you to love them and nuture them and make life as ‘normal’ as it has been in the past.

No one can say this will be easy for you. It’s not. Actually, it’s probably one of the most selfless things you will ever do, especially if this is the first Christmas, Hanukkah or holiday season you are living through without that special someone.

But remember this, please…how you show love to those who are living, will go a long way to how your family survives this tragedy. Your surviving children, and perhaps your spouse, are screaming inside, “but I’m still alive…notice me…love me…look at me…pay attention to me…hold me…cuddle me…say nice things to me…give gifts to me…”

If you are either unsure or have already decided to not do Christmas, please reconsider. You don’t need to do all that you have in the past, but the very best start is to have a family meeting and let everyone express their feelings.

Once you have a clear understanding of what everyone feels, you’ll be able to rethink a more moderate strategy for what you can do and what you just can’t do. At least everyone will have a better sense of why you feel the way you do and they won’t feel so left out of the thinking process.

Christmas or Hanukkah might look a little different this year but it can still be celebrated.

Next post will look at alternative ways to do that…