the antidote to grief
It’s time for my final blog post on the subject of grief and loss, for now at least. I’ve already talked about breastfeeding, pregnancy and the transition to motherhood.
This last post is about another kind of baby – Thrivacious, the non-profit I created while living in Israel for women touched by cancer.
After 4 years, I finally made the difficult decision to step back, at least for the foreseeable future. This was the right decision on so many levels – first and foremost being that I no longer live in Israel and haven’t for some time! And while Thrivacious USA does exist and we did run global online workshops during the pandemic, with a new baby on the way and my coaching career taking flight, I have decided to focus on those things for now. How long this break will be – a year, five years, forever – is unknown.
People keep asking me how I feel about this decision. Truthfully, I feel a sense of grief and loss. Building Thrivacious, its workshops, its community, its retreats, has been fulfilling, therapeutic and wonderfully fun for me. It was something I created from nothing, that I put literally thousands of hours into, my passion, my love and care. And now I have to let it go and say goodbye.
I know that there will still be a retreat in Israel this year, led by an amazing thriver that I would never have gotten the opportunity to meet if it weren’t for Thrivacious. And beyond that, it’s now out of my control and in the hands of the other women who have benefited and who need these services right now.
I once took a class led by a Buddhist Monk about death. How can we cope with death, especially when the circumstances are truly tragic? His antidote, the remedy for grief, was so simple: Gratitude. While I feel sad about this chapter of my life coming to a close, I also feel a deep sense of gratitude for having been able to serve so many women, for having made a difference in the world, for having the opportunity to heal from my own losses by creating that lemonade out of my cancer lemons. I’ll have those experiences, memories and friends with me forever.
Losing a business you started, a job you loved (or needed), a friend, a loved one, a piece of yourself, can feel so painful. When facing such a loss, it is important to remember the following:
Loss and grief are inevitable and natural parts of life.
We cannot ignore them, we must be mindful of them.
Tips to thrive through grief and loss include reframing our stories, problem solving, and self-compassion.
The best antidote to grief and loss is gratitude to have had something so precious in life that it hurts when you lose it.
If you are experiencing a loss and need support right now, I am here for you. I help clients turn lemons into lemonade, loss into meaning and purpose, survivorship into thrivership. Don’t hesitate to reach out to me if you’d like to book a consultation.