All posts by grieving an addict

Love You

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Your irreplaceable loved one is gone. You have a gaping hole in your life where love once lived. Now you are faced with the holiday season.

It can feel so terribly lonely.

Yet that love still lives, inside of you. You are that love. Please do not abandon yourself.

Just think. You are the magnificent result of two tiny cells you can’t even see. Those cells joined together in an incomprehensible union that multiplied and multiplied and multiplied. Imagine the tremendous amount of life-force energy expended to create … you.

Amazing you.

Incredible you.

A you who is utterly unique.

Look at your hands. What beautiful things they have done for you all your life. They serve you nearly every moment of the day, without question, without asking anything in return.

Look at your legs. They have carried you all through your life, without question, without asking anything in return.

And your heart. It pumps life-giving blood into every cell of your body, dozens of times every single minute. Without question. Without asking anything in return.

Look outside at the plants. They grow, they create leaves, they bless the world with blossoms. Without question. Without asking anything in return. They are worthy of appreciation just by being what they are.

How much more worthy of love, gratitude, and care are you? By yourself? Without anyone else in the picture?

So offer it to yourself.

Maybe spritz on a nice fragrance and focus on the aroma.

Maybe make yourself a special meal or order out for your favorite foods.

Maybe take a warm, comforting bath and add fresh blossoms so they float around you.

You are the center of your own universe. Love you. Appreciate you. Care for you. Your dear one is cheering you on, and so am I.

 

 

 

2021 Editing Grant

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During 2018, 2019, 2020, and this summer I won art grants from the Ohio Arts Council. I am using them for valuable editing assistance from Mary Langford for the narrative about my son’s life and 60+ Coping Strategies for those grieving a loss to addiction. We are preparing for the publication of my book, Grieving an Addict. Mary helps me move my writing to the next level, making it even more open-hearted, warm, and readable. During this grant cycle we are focusing on rhythm in my writing.
I am grateful for the opportunity the OAC gives me to work with Mary, who not only has natural talent, but who spent years at the right hand of the master storyteller Sidney Sheldon!

Perfect TEN!

Signs and Wonders

Ten years ago, my CT scan showed a cancerous half-inch nodule squatting on the pulmonary vein next to my heart.

SHT.

After two years of sarcoma treatment, I had just used up my last chemotherapy option. Now what? I felt so screwed.

Five weeks later, when surgeon Patrick Ross operated, that bugger had swollen to 2.5 inches.

That’s aggressive growth.

I can’t tell from the surgical report if he even got clean margins. Who could, with such a dangerous location?

During my post-operation appointment, the nurse practitioner told me she’d seen situations like mine for thirty years. “You need to get back on chemotherapy or get ready for Hospice.”

My mouth went dry, my throat constricted, and my pulse raced. If the nurse was right, I would probably be dead within a few months.

OMG, NO… I had boys to raise and books to write and life to live.

I soon saw my psychotherapist, who witnessed and guided me as I allowed the terror to simply be in my body. Then it flipped into anger, and I stopped breathing, except for quick gasps. Finally, she returned my mind to the room. I shook and shuddered, then relaxed. My chest tingled and emotionally I felt nothing. Then I moved into peace.

Tai Chi Grandmaster Vince Lasorso later pointed out to me how easy it is to slip into feelings of hopelessness, powerlessness, emptiness, loneliness, and being forsaken. No one can face death with you—it’s a solitary assignment. A dark depression, induced by the chemicals of medicine and mind, can extinguish all faith.

“It’s during these times when one must look to the light,” he wrote. “Reliance on God can change your course at any second.”

He was right.

Despite the dire warning, I continued healing my life in every way I knew how, clearing out emotional garbage and removing what Vince called “bad thinks.” Generous and gentle people helped me every step of the way.

Ever since that terrible day in 2011, my scans have been completely free of any evidence of cancer. And I have also been completely free of all cancer treatment.

This month it’s the Perfect Ten (years)!

I find this truly miraculous, not only because of the deadly and persistent diagnosis I had, but also because I have remained healthy despite going through a divorce and losing my 19-year-old son to a heroin overdose in 2015.

Medical treatment bought me time. All the inner healing work I did, and my deepening connection with the Divine, kept me sane and safe.

I now offer what I learned through Coaching. If you or someone you know would like a free initial consultation, feel free to call me at 513 444 0190.

I also will be speaking on “A Conversation with Dis-ease” at noon on Sunday, November 21, 2021 at the Body Mind Spirit Expo, Sharonville Convention Center in Cincinnati.

I look forward to connecting with you!

 

The Sun Makes Me Sing

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Brood X male cicadas are vigorously singing their little tymbals out, calling in mates so the cycle of life can continue.

To me, their drone is the beautiful music of summer, having formed one of my first firm memories of warm Kansas days.

Now they represent far more to me.

Cicadas spend more than a decade underground—in the case of Brood X, a seemingly endless seventeen years in darkness and silence. Then they crawl to the surface, break through their shells, warm up in the sunshine, and fly with golden-tinged gossamer wings.

They live only a few weeks in the sun. During this time they crawl and fly, sing and flick, dance and mate. When they are done with their shining moments, their legacy continues in their gifts of fertilized eggs, food for songbirds, and nitrogen for forest floors.

Just like we humans who choose to transform our lives. When we grieve, we spend a long time—sometimes more than a decade—in the Underworld. For me it started 12 years ago with an end-stage cancer diagnosis. This darkness involved two years of medical treatment, and then continued through the collapse of my marriage, multiple moves, dealing with my son Brennan’s years of drug addiction, the death of my father, and then Brennan’s heroin overdose death at age 19.

Years of suffocating in the terrors of human Hell.

And now—a dozen years and dozens of processes later—I am finally emerging into the light. Into dancing. Into joy.

Just like the cicadas, I am spreading my own golden gossamer wings and learning how to fly. Nourishing others who also want to sing again in the light of the sun. And leaving my own legacy for future generations.

Would you like to join me? I offer grief survival coaching for those who want to thrive and fully embrace life again. Contact me at heidi@grievinganaddict.com to find out more.

Source for title:

Frédéric Mistral from Provençe, France, coined the phrase, “Lou soulei mi fa canta,” Provençal for “the sun makes me sing.” https://www.thenotsoinnocentsabroad.com/blog/la-cigale-why-the-cicada-became-the-symbol-of-provence

Gratitude for Brightly

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There is always something for which we can be grateful. Even when we are in deep and terrible mourning. Even when we are in the midst of a worldwide pandemic.

For some, Covid is providing a time for creativity to flower beautifully and freely. One such person is Connie Lasorso, who wrote her first book, The Fairy Beck: A True Love Story.

I am honored to be in her book through the character Brightly. I cried when I read this fairy’s description:

“The fairies were sampling the newest batch of Brightly’s summer rose elixir. Brightly was an expert gardener of roses and she was a fine maker of elixirs. She had rose colored wings and wore a thorn as a necklace. The thorn stood as a symbol for loss. Annabelle wondered about the thorn but did not ask about it. Some thorns are private. Annabelle dimly recalled the two thorns she had noticed on Kricky’s table.

“The essence from the rose flower had a very high vibrational level which caused every fairy who drank it to lift into the air as if they had troubles maintaining gravity.”

The rose thorn is such a great symbol for the loss of a child because it represents the pain of grieving a deep love.

Connie did not know that a year after my son Brennan overdosed on heroin for his third and final time, I had picked up a bag of rose petals for tea-making. I love the aroma and savor the flavor. I save this delicate drink for special occasions when I feel like I need a little lift.

Like the fairies who lift into the air when they drink Brightly’s rose elixir.

Perfect, Connie. Thank you for this great honor.

Source:

The Fairy Beck: A True Love Story by Connie Lasorso, pages 102-103, available at https://the-beck-bookstore.myshopify.com/

4th Grant for Editing

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During 2018, 2019, and this summer I won art grants from the Ohio Arts Council. I am using them for valuable editing assistance from Mary Langford for the narrative about my son’s life and 60+ Coping Strategies. We are preparing for the publication of my book, Grieving an Addict. Mary helps me move my writing to the next level, making it even more open-hearted, warm, and readable.

I am grateful for the opportunity the OAC gives me to work with Mary, who not only has natural talent, but who spent years years at the right hand of the master storyteller Sidney Sheldon!

In the Belly of the Serpent

Signs and Wonders, ,

Do you sometimes feel like you’ve been swallowed up by your grief, like you’re Jonah trapped in the belly of a whale? Or maybe you feel like you’re shooting through a dark, enclosed water slide, tossed round like a log, without a clue where you’ll end up, or even if you’re going to survive.

For this kind of terror, I find some solace in an ancient myth that appeared in different world cultures. The story was told that at the end of every day, the sun would get swallowed up by an enormous snake, yet would be reborn the following morning. The early Egyptians pictured this as the sun god on a boat that was being carried through the body of a huge snake. In Ohio, a similar concept is depicted at Serpent Mound–the largest prehistoric effigy mound in the world, located near Peebles, Ohio. The quarter-mile-long snake has a three-foot-high body rippling over the ground, ending in a coiled tail. Its horned head opens out to a large oval, as if it’s about to swallow it. Many think the large oval represents the sun being swallowed by the serpent because the giant maw faces due west.

When the sun of life sinks and the dark night rises, I know I am back in familiar yet frightening territory. My more recent soul journey through blackness started during 2009 with highly aggressive end-stage cancer; continued through a three-year divorce and the loss of my father to dementia; and culminated with the unthinkable: losing my 19-year-old son to a heroin overdose.

Yet during those two long years of cancer treatment, my friend Gary gave me a turkey feather. During the divorce process, I felt drawn to Serpent Mound, during which I had a waking dream: The oval filled with light, and in the center lay the body of a woman, radiance surging through her. She stood up, as if being born. I came to realize I was that radiant woman rising up out of the egg. My friend Margaret Klein heard this story and painted it for me. It became the cover for my third book, Thriver Soup: A Feast for Living Consciously During the Cancer Journey. And during a 2019 trip, tour guide Anneke Koremans gave me a little boat.

This June, when my friend Mica invited me to take a day trip to Serpent Mound, I knew it was time to return with gifts of gratitude to the Great Spirit for allowing me to survive the past eleven years.

At the mound, I sat with my back against an old tree and faced the undulating coils. I closed my eyes to meditate. I immediately found myself, in my mind’s eye, lying inside the oval. I heard the words “Life Boat.” And as if on cue, the “boat,” with me inside, slid uncontrollably into the mouth of the giant snake. I was trapped, powerless, terrified.

Night engulfed me again inside its terrible suffocating walls. Water sloshed under my Life Boat, forcing me forward. I sped through the serpent’s slimy body, rounding curves, getting splashed, ever aware of the shadowy energy of the snake. I clung to the sides of the oval and surrendered to the inevitable.

All the way to the coiled tail, and all the way back through, I hung onto life.

And then I slid back out of the mouth. I had survived. Just as I had survived the horrendous circumstances of my life.

Before leaving the park that day, I left the little boat—representing my Life Boat—and the turkey feather—representing the wings I’ve been given, as well as the wings my son Brennan gained when he flew to Heaven during 2015. It was time to let them go, to offer them to the Great Spirit, with gratitude for my survival and renewal.

A couple of days later, I found a snake skin on my drive-way. It’s the second time in my life I have encountered one, and this one was nearly intact. The Serpent had shed its old skin, transformed, and been reborn. As have I.

And today I saw a large bird of prey rise up out of my garden with a snake in its claws. The serpent was taking its final flight on feathered wings—like my son took his final flight into the heavens, carried by the wings of angels. Reborn on the Other Side.

 

 

Sign in a Fawn

Signs and Wonders, Uncategorized, ,

 Do you long for a sign from your dear one who has passed on? Do you receive possible signs, yet wonder if they really mean something? Or do you find that synchronicities show up in your life that are so amazing you find it hard not to believe they are gifts from your departed loved one?

I feel fortunate to have been given another wonderful sign this year, on the fifth angelversary of my son’s final overdose. The first astonishing synchronicity arrived just before that first horrible Christmas without Brennan. An unordered gift box appeared on my deck, and the sender said I could keep it.

Last year a gifted tea rose had exactly four blossoms on exactly my son’s fourth birthday in heaven. It has not produced a single blossom since.

The third most amazing gift arrived on Friday, the day before Brennan’s fifth angelversary. I was startled to find a beautiful little fawn curled up in my garden only six feet away from where I was working on my deck. She stayed in that spot all that Friday and all through Saturday, the day my son left our world five years ago.

I spent as much time as I could on my deck, despite temps in the mid-90s, to be near that fawn. Not for her safety—nature was doing its best to take care of her—but for my own sake. I was surprised to feel a sweet sense of solace from being near her, because her doe-eyed gentleness and innocence reached out and enveloped me.

On Sunday morning when I walked outside, she was frantically pacing along the south side of my yard, distressed because her mommy stood on the other side of the short fence. At one point the fawn turned around and ran directly toward me. I did not want to frighten her, so I talked softly while slowly moving a hand. The motion caught her attention and she abruptly stopped. She stared at me for a breathless moment; then she wheeled and ran back toward her mommy. She soon found her way through the fence.

This lovely creature spent two days with me, the two exact days I would have wanted her here. The two days when I most needed a little extra comfort in my life.

Did my son, or something else, arrange the perfect timing of this beautiful gift? I’d like to believe so. I choose to receive these moments of grace as Divine gifts to help ease my way, to help me know my son is still with me and that our love goes on into eternity.

What is the best synchronicity you have received since losing your loved one?

Message in a Fawn

Guilt, , , ,

Do you feel like you did everything you could but still lost your loved one to substance use disorder? Do you think you abandoned him or her in the one most critical moment of need? Does it overwhelm you with guilt and shame?

While my head might repeatedly tell me these tales, my heart is finding this is not the case. I have a little fawn teaching me this lesson on the angelversary of my son’s passing.

On this morning, exactly five years ago, my son Brennan’s overdosed body lay lifeless and alone in a retreat center bathroom. My body had woken up at 4 a.m. with a terrible feeling of sorrow for my son, but I did not know where he was or what had happened.


Today I am sitting on my deck and the sun is rising over the housetop. Not six feet away is a sweet little fawn. She is curled up, hidden among the lilies and hostas, all alone. No mother anywhere to be seen. Why did that mother abandon her darling Bambi? What was wrong with her?


Fortunately my friend Kay had told me, a few years after she lost her own son to suicide, that a fawn was left alone on her lawn for a couple of days. Kay made some calls and learned that does often leave their babies hidden somewhere so they can go feed. This is normal, natural, instinctual behavior. They can only do what they know how to do. Could she lose her fawn? Sure. My house is surrounded by homeowners with large dogs. Will she? Not likely. Does have been doing this for millennia. Yes, some come back to find their babies are forever gone, but clearly not all do, or there would not be so many deer. Their behavior works for the majority.


Our behavior with our loved ones would ordinarily have worked. The problem is, the drugs now available are not normal or natural. Our bodies are not designed to consume them, yet somehow many of our loved ones got trapped in the lies that these substances would be cool, would help them feel better, would help take away their pain. Instead, their pain was multiplied, and so has our own.


If you hadn’t lost him or her on that horrible day, it probably would have happened on another horrible day. The addiction overpowers every other consideration.


If you loved your dear one—and clearly you did, or you would not be grieving—then you did enough.

How Can We Help Protect Ourselves from Covid-19?

Events,

 As the bereaved, we are automatically much more prone to bodily inflammation.

A relatively new study in Psychoneuroendocrinology (Vol. 93, July 2018, pp. 65-71), and reported by Forbes (Oct. 30, 2018), found that “the blood samples of those who were experiencing ‘elevated grief,’ including feeling like life had lost its meaning, had inflammation levels 17% higher than those who didn’t feel that way (measured by levels of inflammatory cytokine proteins). And the top one-third of the grieving group had levels nearly 54% higher than the bottom one-third.” [1]

These inflammatory cytokine proteins can multiply quickly and cause a “cytokine storm” in Covid-19 patients. According to Randy Cron, M.D., Ph.D., University of Alabama at Birmingham, “Cytokines are inflammatory immunologic proteins that are there to fight off infections and ward off cancers… But when they are out of control, they can make you very ill.” (Forbes Apr 16, 2020, article on cytokine storms and covid-19 patients) [2]

Also of concern is that inflammation contributes to almost every disease in older adulthood, according to Chris Fagundes, an assistant professor of psychological sciences at Rice University. [3]

Therefore, perhaps the best defense against Covid-19—and other illnesses—is a good offense: reduce the elevated inflammation levels in our bodies. This can help us stay healthier overall anyway—so we don’t end up with more grief about our own bodies.

Following my 26 tips for improving your immunity, which you can find on my Thriver Soup blog, I will next be offering ideas for reducing inflammation in our bodies to help us better cope with the terrible hand we have been dealt.

Here is a foundation for better understanding inflammation from my book, Thriver Soup:

“When threatened by wounds, irritation, or infections, cells inflame to assist with the transition back to health. A molecule called nuclear factor-kappaB (NF-kB), which normally resides in cell cytoplasm, moves into the cell’s nucleus (hence the name ‘nuclear factor’) and generates redness, heat, swelling, and pain. When the body heals, the NF-kB molecules return to the cell cytoplasm.

“NF-kB, however, also provokes the genes involved in creating chronic inflammation, which generally does not help the body heal. Instead, long-term heat and swelling becomes an open invitation to cancer. One-sixth of all cancers are directly linked to chronic inflammation. Most, if not all, cancers have unusually high levels of active NF-kB. This protein is considered their missing link. Researchers, for example, found that NF-kB regulates the inflammatory cascade necessary for breast cancer cells to proliferate and metastasize.

“Fortunately, inflammation can be smothered through diet and supplements. NF-kB can be suppressed by phytochemical-rich spices, vegetables, and fruit. Antioxidants can block the proteins so they don’t move into cell nuclei. Vitamins C, D, and E, curcumin (found in the spice turmeric), the herb ashwagandha, pomegranate extract, garlic extract, ginger root, green tea, omega-3 fatty acids from fish oil, and isoflavones found primarily in beans can be effective cellular firefighters. I found such a diet helped reduce my discomfort during treatment, decreasing my need for pain medications.

“When brought back under control, NF-kB provides the body with important healing mechanisms…. Keep the chronic flames doused with an anti-inflammatory diet to help preserve your internal landscape.

“Thriver Soup Ingredient:

         “Ask your doctor to measure inflammation markers in your blood (C-reactive protein and albumin). [Cancer] ‘patients with the lowest level of inflammation were twice as likely as the others to live through the next several years,’ according to long-term studies by oncologists at the Glasgow Hospital in Scotland.”

Thriver Soup, Pg. 174

Sources:

[1] [https://www.forbes.com/sites/daviddisalvo/2018/10/30/new-research-on-inflammation-shows-how-extreme-emotions-can-undermine-health/#4bc491af56f5]

[2] [https://www.forbes.com/sites/claryestes/2020/04/16/what-is-the-cytokine-storm-and-why-is-it-so-deadly-for-covid-19-patients/#6b77ed6460fc]

[3] [https://www.forbes.com/sites/daviddisalvo/2018/10/30/new-research-on-inflammation-shows-how-extreme-emotions-can-undermine-health/#4bc491af56f5]