Widows Support, Coaching for Widows

Don’t go to Filenes for Milk!

I remember, when I was a new-ish widow, complaining to my coach that I was not able to talk with certain friends about my grief. “They don’t want to hear it. They just want to fix me.. They give me solutions when all I really want to do is talk.”

These friends were tired of my pain. They had had enough. It had been 2+ years, and they were ready to move on. I don’t blame them. The loss was mine not theirs and they needed to get on with their lives. They did not understand the relentlessness of a widow’s grief. They did not understand the years it would take to recover.

Thankfully, my coach was very direct. “Mie”, she said, “Don’t go to Filenes for Milk!”

They have milk at Stop and Shop, or Piggly Wiggly, or Shaws, or Safeway. But not at Filenes. Filenes has clothing, belts, and perfume.

I was looking for patience and understanding from people who didn’t have it to give. Instead, they wanted me to feel better. They had solutions and advice but these friends could not listen without judgment.

My coach was simply telling me to go to the right people. If I just needed to talk, I should go to the people who were able to listen, people who had some distance from my pain and did not hurt when I hurt.

I wanted my family and closest friends to be the ones to whom I could vent. Paradoxically, they were exactly the people to whom I could NOT vent. They were too close and cared too much. My pain hurt them.

But I didn’t see it and I went back again and again for support from those who couldn’t give it. Isn’t that the definition of insanity, repeating the same behavior time and again, expecting different results?

So, wonderful widows, don’t go to Filenes for Milk. Don’t go to people for something that they just can’t give you.

Go to the people who are really able to give you what you need. (Friends, Coach, thertapist, bereavement group…) And if you don’t seem to have any of those people in your life, go looking. That is what I had to do. Find people who are able to be with your hurt without discomfort or judgment.

Blessings,

Mie Elmhirst Widows Breathe Coaching

Help for Widows. The Widows Coach For a sample coaching session, call 508-540-4421.

He was not supposed to die…

It was not supposed to be like this…

I was supposed to be married forever to this one man…

My kids were supposed to have their father alive for most of their lives…

I read this week, somewhere, and I can’t remember where, that we Americans think that we know how things are supposed to be. We get a good idea, and then decide that is how it will be.

I had a plan that included a husband for me and a father for my daughter and stepdaughter for many more years than we actually got. That was my plan. Happily forever after.

We have all heard the phrase “We plan, God laughs”, but I am not all that sure that it is quite that simple. I don’t think God is laughing one bit as he watches all of us and our children ache.

So, who says? Who says that what we had planed, in our ego-centric minds, was supposed to happen? Am I that powerful that what I want is what should happen? We all have seen that that is not how it works, and yet in the face of clear evidence that my plans were meaningless, I still clung to the idea that because I wanted my husband to live, he should live.

And, who says that our children won’t be amazing people and make amazing contributions to society BECAUSE they lost their father? So says that they won’t be more sensitive, more graceful, more kind not in spite of their tragedy, but because of it? Who says that we won’t have wonderful lives ourselves? That we won’t contribute to others in an powerfully meaningful way?

I am not saying that we or our children are better off having lost our husband/their father… please don’t go there!!!
I am just saying that we need to think about the possibility that something very, very good can come out of our family’s tragedy.

If you are a brand new widow, this may be just too hard to consider. I understand.
But for the rest of us, we must. Or we remain victims forever.

Mie Elmhirst PCC CPCC The Widows Coach Help for Widows.

If you are a widow who is struggling – please click ‘contact’ for a sample session or email me at mie@widowsbreathe.com.

Dear Wonderful Widows.

No one would describe me as an angry person and in fact takes a whole lot to make me mad. When I was asked after Mike died, if I was angry that he had died, I easily said ‘no’. I was not angry with Mike and not angry that he had died. I grieved and grieved and grieved, but I did not feel anger.

I had this deep intuition that Mike’s time on earth was up. He had lived with cancer for 10 years, 9 years longer than predicted. So, no, I was not angry with God. We had had a good marriage, not always easy, but good.

For me to be angry with God would mean that it was God who took Mike. I could not believe that God would pick Mike to die, Mike who was so full of life and joy and good will. I could not believe that God would choose him to die any more than I could believe that God would have the good people of New Orleans suffer, or the families of 911.

God provides comfort. God gives me the strength to get up on a daily basis to face what I need to face. God reminds me of love and compassion for others and myself. God helps me listen to yet another one of Anneke’s songs when I am so tired I would rather retreat to my bedroom. How many times can one listen to yet another rendition of “Matchmaker, Matchmaker Make me a Match” or “I Could have Danced all Night” and still smile and nod encouragement? God does that for me. And, God provides me with my personal moral compass and the courage to live by its direction.

But this past winter, life happened again and a wound was re-opened; a wound that I thought had been neatly sewn shut. Again, my neatly packaged beliefs were tested.

My friend Jackie died and a good friend of my daughter died. Two more funerals and many more tears. My friend had courage and chutzpah, she was only 50 years old, and she left her husband and 2 teenage children. They were a close four-some. Anneke’s friend died at age 15 in a car accident, black ice and a tree. This girl’s family suffers.

I thought I was doing well as the winter rolled into spring. But what I thought was doing well, was really me sealing my heart off from feeling. Finally, last month, I found myself stuck in a pattern of eating a pint of Ben and Jerry’s every night. I ate it right out of the carton, not even pretending that I would only eat half. I was depressed. Every night reminding myself that I would feel lousy in the morning and yet every night I found myself traipsing back to the 7/11 for my fix – Pfish food, Cherry Garcia, Funky Monkey…

How can this be? After all, I am a coach and I coach widows and I help them with anger and grief… Am I not supposed to be a power of example?

As I spoke with my clients I found myself using words and ideas that I needed to hear myself. Isn’t true that we teach what we need to learn? I saw that I was indeed angry with God. Very, very angry.

Angry with God? But I had constructed a belief system that meant that I did not need to be angry with God. And yet there I was, angry. I felt it in my chest and it came up like an enormous sob. I was angry, not only because of these new losses, but I saw that I was finally angry with God for taking Mike.

It took time, tears, and a good friend to unravel this turn of events.

Many of my clients go through a period of anger, and this was mine. A bit late, but it finally hit. And, like my clients, I don’t like being angry either. I don’t like having deep feelings that make me feel powerless. So when they happen, these big feelings, I look for a place to lay blame. It seems that it is easier to blame than it is to just feel mad. And when there is no one to blame, I blame God.

I reminded myself, that I was just looking for a place to lay blame and really there may be no place to lay it. Instead of blame, my job is to feel, to feel my anger about the randomness of loss.

Loss happens. It is not about God anymore that it is about me, or Mike. It just is.

So I let go of my nightly Ben and Jerry’s, and I allowed myself anger.

The paradox of grief is that the more we are willing to let ourselves feel really bad, the sooner we get to feel good. How crazy is that.

Mie Elmhirst The Widows Coach
Help for Widows For a Sample Coaching Session, please call 508-540-4421.
Help for Widows

You Believe You Are Ready to Date… but…

Learn the important things to know about dating – from the comfort of your living room.

Who is this telephone class for?

• For you if you are finally ready to talk about dating…
• For you if you have begun to date and can’t figure out why  a good man is so hard to find!!! (It is really not all that hard if you know a few secrets…)
• For you if you have waited a long time and now you are just scared.
• For you if you are interested in learning more about Internet Dating with other widows…
• For you if you just want some hand holding.
• For you if you just find the whole topic daunting…
• And most importantly, for you if you are ready for some Fun and Laughter!

When: Next Class begins  Jan 6th, 2010. It runs  every other Wednesday 7:00 PM-8:00 PM EST for 3 sessions. Jan 6th, 20th and Feb. 3rd.

How do I sign up? : This class will be over the telephone – a teleclass. When you call (508-540-4421) to sign up I will give you the conference call number, and teleclass instructions.

How much: $150 payable by check, Paypal or credit card prior to the first class. Payment will save you a space.

What will you get? Handouts, How to’s, homework, (now don’t get nervous…) support, and LOTS of information. The Real Deal.

If you are a widow, CALL 508-540-4421. Or, contact me through this website and let me know that you are interested. I will call you back to confirm. Please sign up early – space will be limited.

You will find that this time well spent – and you will wish you took the class years ago!

Multiple classes will be scheduled if needed.

Five participants Maximum.

Please visit www.widowsbreathe.com or click on ‘contact’ for more information about one-on-one coaching.

Mie Elmhirst, The Widows Coach

June 2001

I knew something was special even before I opened my eyes. Lying in bed, I felt the most remarkable feeling I had ever felt in my life. The only word that came to mind was bliss.  I was not really sure exactly what bliss was, except that I knew that this was it. I was in a state of joy that was joy to the 100th power. I was afraid to move, afraid that it would disappear. I lay very still, thinking that it was hardly a feeling of this earth.

I didn’t understand.

I recalled the previous night and hours of the early morning. It had been a particularly bad night and I had cried until two or three AM. Tossing and turning, unable to settle into rest, I had been desperate for sleep and desperate for escape from my mind. Finally, exhausted and near the end of my rope, I thought to ask Mike for help. Please Mike, if you are there, if you are here, please comfort me, please help me, I need you. I NEED you.

And then, as odd as it sounds, in the very early hours of the morning, I felt his arms wrap around me. I felt his arms as if he were there in the bed with me. I remember still today, the feeling. It did not occur to me to be shocked and I was soon asleep.

Now, waking up, I marveled at how desperate I was just 4 hours ago and how gloriously blissful I felt waking up. I remembered Mike’s comforting arms with surprise. I did not know what to think, so I didn’t. I just appreciated the feeling.

I knew that I needed to get going. I said my daily devotion, got out of bed, put on my robe, and went to the kitchen for coffee. I moved slowly trying to hang onto my good feeling. As I prepared my breakfast, the feeling of bliss gradually calmed and by the time I had finished my eggs, it was gone. In its place was simple gratitude.

*

How do I explain what happened? How do I explain Mike’s arms?  And how do I explain, after 6 months of pain, waking up one morning, to bliss? I cannot explain it.

I am not a woo-woo sort of person – but I know what I felt. And I know, when I occasionally get brave and tell my friends about my experience, they nod and they are kind. But I am pretty sure they assume that my imagination was at work.

Maybe it was. Maybe I felt only what I wanted to feel and my imagination tricked me. Maybe I wanted so much to feel Mike that I did; maybe I wanted so much to feel bliss that I did. Maybe I “wanted it” into happening.

But between you, my fellow widows, and me, I don’t think so. I am choosing to believe that Mike was present and he was caring for me. It has been 8 years since that night/morning, and even with my menopausal memory, I remember it like it was yesterday. Every once in a while, I still feel his presence; I am sure that every once in a while, Mike still stops in to check on both Anneke and me.

Although I will never be absolutely sure of what happened, the experience changed me. I felt certain, from that day on, that no matter how hard it got, Anneke and I would come through our loss, whole and complete. No longer did I have to wonder if we were going to be OK. I knew we were going to make it.

I speak to widows, every day. Each widow has her own story, her story that defies common sense, and yet is real. I am told these stories, I think, because we widows want validation, and we need to be heard. What we are walking through feels so unbelievable, even to us.

So, Wonderful Widows, are you talking? Are you talking to people who can really hear what you have to say without judgment?

Mie Elmhirst MBA CPCC PPC     Widows Breathe Coaching      Coaching for Widows

Help for Widows For a sample coaching session, please call 508-540-4421.