When the enormity of your child’s diagnosis sinks in, you feel as if control over your life’s slipped through your fingers like water.

Control with a capital “C” becomes a thing of the past. 

You feel like you’ve been given a life sentence of overwhelm, fear, and hopelessness.

You’re alone in a silo of grief that appears to have no top or bottom.

Platitudes from friends and family hurt more than help. 

While they may understand intellectually, they’ll never be in your shoes nor able to fathom the realities of your experience.  

Once the dust settles and shock thaws off, YOU begin to understand where you’ve landed…

… that the rest of your life will be designed around running in high gear, with extraordinary responsibilities that you must build your new normal around. 

• The top thing to do now is renegotiate your relationship with choice, right when it’s stripped away from you. 

It’s important to seek and recognize choice where you find it, then use your agency —your ability ...

Has the landscape of your life and its trajectory changed to something new, unrecognizable, and unwanted?

Has something happened to you either suddenly, or slowly over time, leaving you feeling broken or not whole, needing to figure out new ways to go forward?

When a loved one dies we’re often forced into an identity transition. Others understand our pain and support us, at least initially. Grief and loss is acknowledged and being sad and confused is expected.

And…other losses cause the same kind of pain but aren’t perceived, treated, or labeled as grief and loss. 

But they are EXACTLY that. They cause the death of who we were. 

• When we lose access to our former identity, it’s a kind of death as real as losing a person to death. 

We go through the same fears and feelings as a person who’s lost a loved one. 

And these losses need to be given the same space and TLC a bereaved person gets. 

Things like:

• A catastrophic medical diagnosis, like a stroke that limits independenc
...

Most of us are busy. 

Parents or caregivers of people with special needs or disabilities are exponentially busier than others. 

So much is out of their control. 

• And being better organized is a powerful tactic to take back SOME control. 

When I interviewed with my apparel patternmaking teacher, after lying to her face that I’d do 5 hours a day of homework, she showed me her kitchen. Opening every cabinet, with a smile, she said “A place for everything and everything in its place!”

People who sew are often incredibly organized. They know the value of expediency. Every minute counts. Every hand movement counts. 

In factories, they time how long it takes the best stitcher to make a garment, then expect everyone else to be near that speed. 

The Gap patternmaker (who told me about my teacher) was only allowed to put ONE curve in the outseam of a pants pattern, to increase speed of construction.

• One area most of us can become more organized, EASILY, is to set aside 5-10 minutes...

Last year I learned of grief expert David Kessler, who co-authored books with Elizabeth Kubler-Ross. I took his Grief Educators training and now volunteer as a facilitator in his online grief support group Tender Hearts.

Today I’m sharing 3 FREE events related to grief and loss.

Please share with others who may benefit.

I guarantee they’ll be fantastic!!

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1. TOMORROW - Wednesday February 4th

Moving through Trauma in the Body

Join Paul Denniston, Founder of Grief Yoga, and Dr. Frank Anderson, Trauma Expert and IFS Specialist, for a powerful, interactive session on how trauma lives in the body and ways to begin the healing process.

https://www.pauldennistontraining.com/moving-through-trauma-in-the-body-event-p

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2. Tuesday, February 11th

Grief Talk — When a Parent Dies

In this free Online talk, David Kessler discusses:

• How the grief after a parent's death is unique
• Ways to forgive, release the burden of guilt, and create a legacy of love
• Dealing
...

It doesn’t take rocket science to create a more meaningful life. It starts with awareness and effort. 

What’s always been part of human life is the value of connection. Words from the dying confirm that connection, not achievement, matters most. 

Yet we’re in a connection crisis.

Have you ever systematically evaluated your relationships to figure out why some are more satisfying than others?

It might come down to intentions—choosing one kind over the other. 

• Transactional relationships —exchanges of value based on “What can I get out of this?”— are common.  
  
  
• Transformational relationships —those built on trust, emotional connection, and long-term mutual growth— are where we find fulfillment.

In many cases, where we need a transformational relationship we settle for transactions. 

This may appear to work well in the moment. It’s an easy default mode. It may be lower risk. It’s based on quick value at predetermined costs.

But it may become a habitual way of relating that hur...

 What’s one big thing you would have missed out on that required leaving your comfort zone?

—Julie

www.courage-ignite.com

Masters of Change

https://www.amazon.com/Masters-Change-Successful-Individuals-Challenging/dp/B0CGGFJN93

One thing parents with kids with special needs experience, in spades, is ongoing grief. 

New losses keep popping up. 

New health challenges combine with more milestones missed… more out of reach opportunities… more dashed dreams. 

Some won’t be going to college when they’re 18… or getting married, ever… or…

When hopes and plans go south, we can focus on what went wrong or on what we need to do now. 

These parents are masters at taking next steps into the unknown. Living with the discomfort of uncertainty. 

• Risking “failure” isn’t a choice for them.

Some of us don’t make decisions —we procrastinate— because we’re not sure our plan will work. We’re unwilling to risk “failure.”

• But strivers don’t see “failure” as failure. 

They see it as a step in a direction they’re going. They took action and it didn’t work as expected or wanted.

They use each step as fodder for learning what they want and don’t want… what works and doesn’t... as a DIAGNOSTIC, pointing toward what to d...

I just read a few social media posts talking about boundaries...how in corporate and tech, you’ll get eaten alive if you don’t look out for yourself. 

About how boundaries can create “clarity and respect, allowing relationships to thrive.”

These are important topics, definitely easier said than done.

As a parent of a child with a complex medical condition, setting boundaries is a more slippery slope than even doing that on your job.

When your child's in the care of others— at school, receiving therapy, or even getting respite care while you (supposedly) decompress— boundaries and advocacy are a high stakes matter. 

Your child’s at the mercy of others.

So when something needs change, advocacy may have consequences you might not want to risk. 

You worry about what might happen behind your back, because you’re a squeaky wheel.

Will the provider take their frustration out with YOU—your ideas and requests—on your child? 

Even parents of non special needs kids may falter and not spe...

Obviously, we live in busy times. Schedules are filled to the brim, and then some. Especially for families. 

Whether you work inside the home taking care of family needs or outside earning an income (and then inside…taking care of things), it’s all a bit much for one person. 

Humans aren’t designed for the pace of life we now must manage, nor for the nuclear family unit model. 

For us with health conditions that slow us down, or being a caretaker of someone, more complexity gets added to the picture. 

For me, especially with low grade chronic health issues, it’s easy to downplay the importance of taking better care of myself. 

It’s easy to become complacent, because every single day, doing something to take better care of yourself can be what nobody else notices, so it’s not missed. 

Self care can become a battle, wrestling with my mind that tells me it’s not worth that much work…it’s an impossible task anyway…other urgent things must be done first. 

Urgency wins out over what’s...

Isn’t it amazing how much beliefs factor into our success?

Beliefs are a mindset choice and they’re either hurting or helping us.

Yet it takes effort to uncover what’s happening on this automatic level.

Then it takes intentional work to shift those beliefs that are not serving us.

The reason you hear so many amazing stories of overcoming adversity is because people were forced to change.

And in the process of feeling lost and stuck in confusion and uncertainty, they were forced to adjust their beliefs about what they could, should, and now wanted to do.

Resulting from this discovery and reconciliation process they find themselves transformed into a new version of themselves they never could have imagined.

But they never could have imagined that version with their old set of beliefs, could they?

It takes courage to question what we believe to be true…when we’re not up against a wall.

To just choose one day to explore our beliefs.

Because it might lead to needing to change. To ...