Caring For Our Community Since 1976.
This holiday season, we invite you to remember someone who has been special in your life by attending our Lights of Life Holiday Remembrance Service. This indoor service will feature moments to honor and remember as well as connect with others in similar situations.
For your convenience, we are having a Lights of Life Holiday Remembrance Service both in Longmont and Boulder. RSVP’s are appreciated. For more information or to register, please click here.
As it gets darker earlier, it gets colder and Halloween is just around the corner, there are so many fall activities that time can feel compressed or over scheduled.
How do you cope with the holiday blues if this is an important holiday to you? How do you have the emotional energy to face this holiday without dread? Each person handles their grief differently. Here is one idea for Halloween. On the holiday, set aside five minutes to check in with your senses. What do you:
SEE? SMELL? TASTE? TOUCH? HEAR?
This helps you if you are feeling anxious or sad. Take a pause and acknowledge where you are in the moment. This is a way to know how you are on this holiday, without too much effort or energy. If you want to, jot it down. For example this Halloween, I might see the birds in the sky flying over. I hear the sound of traffic, etc.
If you want to spend some time reflecting about your loved one, do the same thing again.
SEE? SMELL? TASTE? TOUCH? HEAR?
What sounds do you think of when you think of your loved one? Or smell? Is it the food he/she made or something that he or she used? For example, when I think of my mother, I remember the smell of cold leaves before going trick or treating, or her popcorn balls that smelled of hot sugar.
Sensory memories are quite unique for each person and special. We often can associate those sensory memories in our present life. It gives us connection with a loved one that is no longer here.
On Halloween, I will set out a pumpkin, plug in some lights, order take out because I don’t have energy to cook and I will remember her when I smell the cold leaves on Halloween night.
Be gentle with yourselves in grief.
Our fall Grief Services newsletter has arrived & is available to download and share. Click the link below to read helpful tips for the grief journey, recommending readings, and fall grief group offerings:
Grief Services Newsletter Fall 2015
For more information on our Grief Services, click here.
This moment of gratitude is inspired by the wonderful folks at ABC Kids Climbing in Boulder. They have graciously offered to partner with us and make our Healing Circles Nature Adventure Day possible. We look forward to spending an awesome day in Eldorado Canyon for this fun day!
For more information on the Healing Circles Nature Adventure Day or to register, click here.
How do you manage your grief on Father’s Day? Here’s a simple version of surviving Father’s Day without your Dad.
You will experience feelings. You may not like them, but you will have them. It very well may be painful, empty, lonely, loving, connecting, sad, happy, meaningful, numb, disconnected, or all of the above. Feelings are an important part of our life.
Make a plan. Do something. If you do something, it will feel as though this day matters, and that your dad, uncle, or grandpa are being meaningfully remembered. Try doing something that your dad would have enjoyed doing with you. Rituals and family gatherings are popular. Think about activities that would be meaningful to you.
Believe that the day will pass and that the feelings will pass as well. At the end of the day, it will be over for another year. It might help to remember that in nature, there are no special days or national holidays. The birds don’t know it is Father’s Day. It is just another day for them.
Do what helps you best when you feel stressed. Whether it is being outside, doing an activity, watching a show, being with friends or being alone, taking a bubble bath, or reading a book, just do it, as long as it is comforting and not destructive. Take care of yourself.
Rest, slow down, take a pause, breathe and allow time to check-in with yourself even if it is in the midst of activity. Let people love and support you in a way that works for you.
A couple of months ago, we began a brand new grief support group for kids and teens. This workshop is for those who have had a death loss and want to remember their special person by creating glass art. The Spring Session of this group recently ended and was a success! We have had several participants sign up for the summer session and all of the parents said that this group had a positive impact.
Our summer session of the Healing Circles Glass Grief Group begins next month and will go through August. For more information or to register, please click here.
Download the flyer: Healing Circles Summer Glass Group 2015
Many thanks to our instructor Michon Davies for facilitating, our wonderful volunteers for assisting, and to C&H Glassworks & Ambrosia Glass for partnering with us and making this group possible!
We invite children, teens, and their families to join us for a special event honoring fathers, step-fathers, grandfathers, and other special men by remembering them on Father’s day at The Butterfly Pavilion. This event will be held on June 21, 2015 from 11:45 am – 12:45 pm.
For more information on this event or to register, click here.
For more information on all of our grief support offerings, click here.
All seasons have a beginning, middle and end, as do all feelings, even in grief. Sometimes the winter darkness, the flurries of holidays, and desire to be with our loved ones who are no longer with us, makes us forget that spring bring new growth, more light and changes.
Each season in grief has its own set of unique memories. Spring is often a time to start to create new ways of being. We clean out our closets, we make plans for the summer, we spend more time outside and we decide how we want to be in this season with our grief. Maybe we try something new? Maybe we plant flowers or trees in honor of our special person? Whatever it is we decide to do in spring, grief is with us and so is our special person. We do not forget them. The continuing bond we have is still there, ever changing as we continue to change in our grieving process. Hope is the courage that continues to guide us. Be gentle with our grief.
By TRU Grief Services
The groundhog saw his shadow and six more weeks of winter was predicted. Valentine’s Day came and went and the grocery stores were drenched in flowers and chocolate. Snow comes and goes quickly as it comes and spring is not quite here. But for me, the word that comes to mind is yearning. In grief we yearn for what is just out of reach, for what was and not for what is in the present moment. It is what we long for again. The longing, the ache in the heart and body, is part of the grieving process and it is sometimes difficult to give ourselves the compassion to feel and accept it.
When I yearn for the person who has died, I have to give myself the compassion to accept that and permission to cope in whatever way works in the present moment. Our clinical supervisor defined compassion as the “deep awareness of the suffering of another with the desire to relieve it.” For the month of February, I ask myself: can I give myself the gift of self-love and compassion to accept my grief? If my special person who died were sitting next to me now, what would s/he say to me? Can I receive compassion? Does it take away the yearning for my loved one during Valentine’s Day? No, but compassion is a gentle reminder to not judge the process or the feelings that go along with missing the person who has died. I continue to yearn.
Our spring Grief Services newsletter is here! This newsletter is full of helpful tips, upcoming events, and ongoing grief groups.
Click here to read the Spring newsletter: Grief Services Newsletter Spring 2015
Click here to sign up to receive the Grief Services newsletter by email!
