Tag: mental-health

Posted on

Normalizing Grief

“Grief does not change you. It reveals you. “

Let’s talk about grief, my darlings. As we all know, there are many different types of grief that have nothing to do with the death of an actual person. Grief encompasses the ending of many things; however, in today’s blog I will be going over some pointers to help you to normalize the grief you feel when someone has died.

Let’s first start with the obvious. Despite the fact that there are many organizations that are considered death positive, we overwhelmingly live in a death phobic culture. We see it all around us- from the boardrooms to the beauty industry. We can also see the stoicism that some people display despite them having newly experienced what may have been a devastatingly tragic death of a loved one.

Why? Well… we can probably state the obvious: grief can be seen as a taboo topic. How can we shift that mindset? By being open and discussing loss and the emotions that come along with it. Grief can be isolating, and talking about grief openly can make people feel less alone.

Removing expectations for your grief is helpful as well. I’m sure you’ve all heard the saying that everyone grieves differently. Essentially, there is no right or wrong way to grieve. What works for one person may not for another. What we are looking at here are societal expectations that really do not serve us in the long run. Neither do self-imposed expectations. Allowing for your own individual process to unfold naturally is the key!

You know how we sometimes do things that make us feel uncomfortable because we don’t want someone else to feel uncomfortable? Grief is another area where we see this play out. Remember, you do not have to hide your pain or pretend to be okay. As a matter of fact, being authentic about your own grief actually normalizes it and invites deeper connection with others. Masking your grief to make others feel uncomfortable does not help or serve anyone!

I’ve often said that healing is like a rollercoaster ride. It’s a journey filled with the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. It certainly has it’s ups and downs to say the least. But the thing that is key is to give yourself grace when emotions resurface and reminding yourself that grief is not linear.

Since everyone does grief differently, and grief is not linear, it’s time we ditch the timelines. The truth of the matter is that there is no “right” amount of time to grieve. What is called for here is patience! Be patient with yourself and others as healing takes time, and that is okay!

Don’t tell yourself, “I should be over this by now” or minimize your feelings. All your emotions are valid and deserve the space to exist and be felt. Anger, sadness, guilt, regret, relief, joy- these are all part of the process. Avoid gaslighting your own grief. Remember, grace and no judgement!

Here is one of my favorites: cancel plans when you need to. Grief can be overwhelming, especially for highly sensitive people. If there is anything we’ve learned given the times we are living, and the immense collective grief we are experiencing, is that it is perfectly okay to prioritize your mental health and well-being by stepping back when needed. What other people think is there business and none of yours!

One of the hardest things to do, especially if you consider yourself to be the go-to person, the fixer, is simply to be without fixing. I know, that’s a difficult one for some of us, and it is a skillset that takes practice. While we may believe that grief needs solutions, it doesn’t. Grief needs acknowledgement. Sometimes, just sitting with someone and listening can mean the most!

It’s also important to honor the loss no matter how “big” or “small.” Whether it is the loss of a loved one, a pet, or a dream, your grief is valid. Every loss deserves to be acknowledged and honored. Remember, allow yourself grace!

While grief has no timeline, and it’s not linear, it also doesn’t just vanish. On the contrary, grief evolves over time. For me personally, I feel that time has allowed me to grow more expansive and therefore have the capaciousness to hold my grief and joy. Allowing room for people to talk about their loved ones down the road is a sign of love, not lingering pain!

The last, and very important, factor for normalizing grief is to seek support from friends, family or professionals. Advocate for therapy as a helpful tool. Joining a support group or therapy can provide tools and community for navigating your grief. Normalize asking for help!

I hope you find these pointers useful, and I encourage you to share them as you see fit. These too are conversation starters that can, and will, pave the way to better facilitate having conversations around death and dying and one’s mortality. Let’s be the change and shift the way death is viewed and spoken about with our friends and family!

I also encourage you to reflect on everything you just read and perhaps do a little journaling. Check in with your body. Take a few deep, slow breaths. Feel your connection to the earth. What feelings are you experiencing in your body right now? What are you grieving?

If you would like more resources, visit http://www.goingwithgrace.com

Much gratitude for your time and presence, and remember to be the light, spread the love, and be a blessing.

Sending Full Moon blessings your way! JT Carricarte

Posted on

Hello Again!

“Whoever you are

and whatever helps

I hope today is a day you are finding

the softest way through.” Andrea Gibson

Darlings…it’s me, and I’m back!

I am not sure where to start other than I guess a recap of the last two years since my last blog post, Moving on…Rest and Nourishment, back in March 2023. What a ride it has been! One filled with sacred practices, stillness, quietude, hibernation, rest, nourishment, letting go of burdens not mine to carry, and much discernment with regards to certain people, circumstances or situations I’ve had to let go of because they were no longer serving me or aligned with my values around non-violence, accountability, justice, integrity, dignity, compassion, equal rights, equity, and overall respect for humanity and the very real lived experiences of others. Darlings, sometimes we just have to give ourselves the grace of letting go and release anything or anyone that disrupts our peace and well-being. And we can do so in love! Personally, doing so has created a lot of spaciousness, expansiveness and clarity around how I want to live out my remaining days on this planet.

These past couple of years have also brought some very interesting people, teachers, facilitators and opportunities into my life. Having said all that, I have definitely kept my people close! There’s nothing like being in community with like-minded individuals who are also committed to “doing the work,” as well as putting good medicine out there into the world by sharing one’s gifts and talents in an effort to help raise collective consciousness, helping to heal humanity and the evolution of planet earth. Celebrating friend’s successes, supporting one another and watching dreams come to fruition is also an important part of the process. It’s always important to celebrate milestones along the way!

If you read the March 2023 blog, you’ll know I was focusing on my word that year, which was “nourish…” all things mind, body and spirit. It was much needed too because I had a big move at the time and decided to live at the beach. It was something that was NOT on my radar. I mean I was spending lots of time in my little crash pad but never entertained the thought of doing it full time. It was one of THE BEST decisions I’ve ever made, and also allowed me to cut my expenses greatly by not maintaining another apartment which I was rarely at.

In addition to my usual travels to Florida and Texas, I also got to go to Ghost Ranch, in New Mexico, in September 2023 for a writer’s and rest retreat offered by one of my beloved teachers, Tracee Stanley. She is the best selling author of two books: Radiant Rest and The Luminous Self and the founder of the on-line community, Empowered Life Circle which I have been a member since its inception. Finally getting to meet her in person and being in community with her was a dream come true! It is also where I was honored to have Tracee shave my head our last night together (talk about letting go…more on that another time.)

It was an intimate 11 person retreat that allowed for beautiful friendships to form as we supported each other’s writings, dreams, creativity, shared rest practices and beautiful meditations and conversations. We truly bonded and keep in touch. We set up a weekly call to serve as a writing container, and whomever shows up… shows up.

As a result, I ultimately submitted a book proposal. I only sent it to one agent, but she had to pass because apparently there were a lot of proposals out there dealing with all things mind, body, spirit and mental health and well-being. I did receive some good feedback though. However, the last thing I want is a job that requires a lot of social media presence, followers, emails, website, etc. On the contrary, I look for ways to regularly limit my time and disconnect from social media for a month here and there throughout the year. If I want to publish a book, it will have to be self-published. It is what it is!

Another, long awaited and dreamed about opportunity is when I found Alua Arthur who is an End of Life Death Doula, the founder of Going with Grace and best selling author of Briefly Perfectly Human. I really don’t know how I came across her TED Talk in 2023, but I instantly fell down the “all things Alua” rabbit hole! Training to become an end of life doula had been a dream of mine for a long time and a role I have played throughout my life (most of us have without even realizing it). If you’ve read some of my older blogs, you will know that I’ve had an intimate, up close and personal relationship with death since I was a little girl. And having had a near death experience back in 2012 further cemented that relationship and desire. That dream came true as I traveled last year to Arizona for the in-person training last year.

I think that seed may have been planted back in 2008. There was this Hospice worker named Nick whom I met when my mama was at the end of her life, and he impacted me greatly, as did the publication he gave me- Crossing the Creek– which assists family and the person coming to the end of their life to understand the dying process and what the body goes through mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually in preparation for dying. If you google it, you will see the author made it a free, downloadable PDF. I cannot even begin to tell you how many people I have shared Crossing the Creek with over the past 17 years, the meaningful conversations I’ve had and the much needed conversations that have been facilitated as a result of sharing it (mini doula at work). Sharing is caring!

The last few years have found me deepening my meditation practice by way of daily Yoga Nidra practices. Who knew that Yoga Nidra practices could be so revealing, restoring, nourishing, enlightening, restful, relaxing and how they, too, prepare you for death. Being in that liminal space, that portal, that void, gives you a sense of clarity as well as a multitude of opportunities for inner investigation, awakening, growth and transformation. One is more present to life (and death), and allows us to move with intentionality and purpose. The practices allow us to remember who we are, why we are here and our inextricable connection to the natural world. I have learned, and remembered, so much being part of the Empowered Life Circle online community! And I’ve met so many beautiful souls. Needless to say, these practices have also allowed me to stay rooted, grounded and resourced especially during these challenging and heartbreaking times we are living.

Full transparency here: I do not know where on Instagram I found the following passage, but I just came across it as I was rereading some things from the beginning of 2025 that I had written. It’s unlike me not to cite who or where I saw it….guess I never planned on sharing it until now. It pretty much speaks to how I rolled into 2025, and I’m certain it will resonate for many of you- especially if you are a highly sensitive person:

“My heart no longer has the capacity to reside in love where only war exists. I will sacrifice my pleasure to keep my peace. The standard of safety within my mind, body, heart and spirit are non-negotiable. I vow to never jeopardize the degrees of healing I’ve accessed for anything or anyone. Everything is worth losing for me to not lose myself. I am not desperate for company that’s usually draped in the misery, hurt and insanity that took root long before me. I only welcome the presence of ease, health, rest, assurance, respect, appreciation, reciprocity, oneness, gentleness, calmness, laughter, security, freedom and protection. Anything else would be an impure distraction and inflamation to my being. I close all doors that are open that don’t serve the highest good and greatness for all. May I only align with the likeness of all that represents maturity, trust, open communication, honesty, resolution, patience, understanding, empathy, discipline and direction. As I am complete. We are complete.” And so it is, darlings!

So… I entered 2025 with a great deal of clarity, and my word for the year has been “tend.” Yes, I am tending to all things mind, body and spirit and the Tend Collective (tendcollective.co), as well as the Empowered Life Circle, regularly offer up practices to help us do so. Think about this for a moment: If we do not tend to ourself FIRST, how can we show up for others, tend to others, and do the things that life calls us to do?

This recap pretty much brings me to the here and now. Where do I go from here? Allow me a few more moments to tell you…wink, wink!

After the Going with Grace end of life training, which was very intense, hands on, thorough, entailed a lot of research, assignments, as well as loads of deeply profound inner inquiry, holding and bearing witness to other people’s grief, and the fact that we live in such a death phobic culture here in the US, I’ve decided to take on the role of Mortality Conversationalist and do what Maya Angelou always said: “When you learn, teach.” Also, Alua Arthur and the GwG team awakened us to the need for education and awareness around the various roles a death doula plays and the much needed conversations families, medical professionals, health care systems, and individuals should be having around one’s own mortality.

Can you believe there are doctors and medical professionals who do not even know the difference between palliative care and hospice? And that they are 2 extremely and tragically underutilized services? And that it some cases, these services, that can be offered up to a year or longer before a person dies, are often not recommended until a mere few weeks or month before a person dies? That’s for another conversation!

Moving forward, my goal is to offer up Mortali-tea with your very own Mortality Conversationalist in the form of perhaps a twice monthly blog post. I suggest you prepare some tea (or beverage of choice), have some snacks on hand as well as a journal or sketch pad and your favorite writing or drawing instruments before tuning in to read the next post. Writing is a somatic practice that is so damn good for the nervous system, but if your choice is to type in your notes or use voice record for your answers, that’s OK too. Your choice, my darlings! Just know there will be a host of opportunities, inquiry, resources and book recommendations for you to delve into and explore your own relationship to all things related to death and dying and sometimes with some much needed humor sprinkled in. That is a very empowering thing!

I will leave you with one tidbit in the form of a question that Alua Arthur encourages us to ask ourselves everyday, and that is:

“What must I do to be at peace with myself so that I may live presently and die gracefully?”

Sit. With. That.

Till next time!

BE the light, spread the love and be a blessing!

Much gratitude for you taking the time to read my musings and even sharing when you feel called to do so. Oh, and Full Moon Blessings to you! xoxo JT Carricarte