Sometimes I feel like I don’t have it in me. To move fast. To say much. To speak in front of others. To provide. To create. To become every day someone new. We are being asked to do so much. It feels very machinery. Robotic with an AI brain. Almost like a factory of the future. It’s tiring to be human this way. Unless of course you escape in the middle of nowhere, with some land. And open roads. Where you can remember what it was like to just hear yourself without the noise of the machine. Sorry for today’s letter. But all of the speed around me makes me feel that I am not fast enough. Good enough. Smart enough to keep up with everyone else. Lately I heard the noise of the machine, louder. So I turned it down. I don’t know how to say this without sounding wrong but I hope I never find big success. Never. Even the thought of succeeding makes my heart palpate. So where does that leave me? Let me tell you. I am on my way to finding a big piece of land in Texas. Our house here in California goes on the market next week. We will be moving mid June. Probably a road trip with the dogs. Once there, I will continue to write, teach, speak and create but with one thing in mind. My work is not my life. It is just my work. First I do my life. Then I do my work. Not the other way around. And not fast. Not loudly. Quietly. Somewhere in the middle of the country on a farm with space to see the sun rise and set. I am starting to like myself maybe for the first time ever. Just a woman with love for herself, her family and all the people she wants to help with her words. At the end of the day may we all find time to live, love and help others while laughing our hearts out. (Click to tweet!) Oh sweet life. I have missed you. With living life, Christina PS. I have such big news to share with you. A big study of Life Reentry has been funded and is about to begin at the Kessler Foundation. This has been a big dream come true. One day Life Reentry will find its way to your local church, community and hospital. We are making big strides. P.S. JOIN ME FOR THE TEMPLE JOURNEY: A LIFE AFTER DEATH. REGISTER HERE: https://www.1440.org/programs/faculty-led-programs/personal-growth/self-discovery/temple-journey
Read MoreSomeone said to me the other day. Christina, you must have not moved on. You are still writing about your loss. I have to tell you my first response was to shake my head and dismiss it. As it is such an untruth. But soon after, I realized how unfair it is to dismiss it, especially since some people only see the blogs. They have not read Second Firsts and Where Did You Go? And even then, it may not be enough. Before I begin, I must tell you that it took a decade to get here. I hope it takes you less. I wish I had someone to tell me what I am about to. I don’t think its OK to suffer forever. And It breaks my heart when people do. It is not that I am not OK with mourning. I am. We need to mourn. But, there comes a time when long term grief can lead to depression, suicide and unnecessary hurt. As you know I call that place the Waiting Room. When we are there for what it feels like an eternity, it is not OK. Especially since there are so many tools and resources to help us. For me, the way out of that eternal feeling of grief came first with the understanding of how to use my brain to heal my life. I had to make it bring me back to living. I had to redefine what it means to be whole again. It took me years. I never thought it was OK for me and my kids to be in this horrible pain. During those years I felt cold inside. Even when I was falling in love. It was freezing. The freeze was there even longer than my grief. Alongside anger, bitterness, fear, depression and confusion. Most people think it’s grief that outlasts all of the above. But that is not true. So to the person who thought I was still grieving, a better statement would have been. You still seem furious about what happened to you. You bet I do sister. Of course I am furious about the tragedies of my life. And you could have also said to me, you still seem afraid about some things. Oh yes, I have never recovered completely in regards to trauma and PTSD. Sure, girlfriend. Yup. And the confusion. YES. The confusion about the seeming permanence of mortality lead me to writing Where Did You Go? I had to find out what happened to him after he died. I then had to find a way to understand the place he had gone to. So I started to experiment with entering and exiting my world. I called these experiences Temple Journeys. I had to know first hand what science, physics, and religion were all talking about. I spent the remaining few years taking care of both my physical and non-physical life. And sister, I have to tell you that when you travel to the places I have been, it changes you. Words like “Have you moved on?” and “Are you still grieving?” no longer have relevance to my life. I am sorry sister, but I want you to really understand this place I am trying to take you. I want you there too. You see, love never dies. It transcends time and space. I had to learn how to transcend. I had to remember my non-physical self. I had to work on both my life here and there. So when you ask me if I have moved on, I giggle a little. Move on? From where? To where? Darling, I have travelled across many universes. Moved in and out of dimensions. But I have never moved on from love. Finding my way to a deathless life. Where we never lose anyone. Where everything is possible. So, sister come along with me. Come live a life of wonder and miracles of the seen and the unseen world. One day you will understand that death is but a doorway to another beginning, another life, another adventure. Yes, we must mourn. We must grieve. But then we must seek the truth and live as if everything is as it should be and this, this sister is one of the many adventures we get to have together. We meet in many lives and many embraces. Physical loss is an evolutionary experience. One day we will all learn that love is the thread between the seen and the unseen. We only truly lose our people when we forget that. (Click to tweet!) With many journeys, Christina PS. I did an amazing interview with NPR New Dimensions Radio. It is free until April 9th. Click play on the link here and take me with you on the road. P.S. JOIN ME FOR THE TEMPLE JOURNEY: A LIFE AFTER DEATH. REGISTER HERE: https://www.1440.org/programs/faculty-led-programs/personal-growth/self-discovery/temple-journey
Read MoreI don’t know exactly when it started to happen. But there was a moment in time when things shifted towards more happiness than hopelessness. More joy than resistance. More cheer than angst. More present than past. But It took me a decade to get there. Yes ten whole years. That’s 3,652 days. That’s 87,658 hours. For every one of those days and hours I became my own best friend. I talked myself out of staying in the waiting room. I talked myself out of thinking of myself as a victim, as widow, as weak, as alone, as abandoned, as unworthy, forgotten, lost. And told myself that I had something special inside of me. I was the underdog. I was the woman who could... and that I could keep going. I was kind to myself. At night when the world would reject me, I would accept me. When every day I found closed doors, every night I assured myself that the door keepers were mistaken. When I felt unloved, I found a way to love myself. When I wanted to hide, I slowed myself down and only took tiny steps until I could do more. So I started to be ok with who I was, how I climbed, how unsocial or social I was, how loving or unloving I was and what made me or didn’t make me happy. I finally started looking for my own definition of good, my own definition of happy. When I started being ok with my own kind of happy everything became better. I didn’t resist myself anymore. I didn’t feel as much guilt. I didn’t have shame. I embraced the uniqueness of my life after loss. Who I had become. And that got me out of hopelessness. I became my own best friend. And I gave to myself what the world was not ready to give me. Worthiness. (Click to tweet!) Today, I am asking you to start giving to yourself. When you go to bed tonight and think about all the bad things that happened in your day be kind to yourself. Tell yourself that you are worthy of a million stars, of the brightest moon and of a million open doors. Because you are. With love, Christina P.S. JOIN ME FOR THE TEMPLE JOURNEY: A LIFE AFTER DEATH. REGISTER HERE: https://www.1440.org/programs/faculty-led-programs/personal-growth/self-discovery/temple-journey PPS. And keep going on your journeys with WHERE DID YOU GO?
Read MoreIt was late summer, early fall in 2011. It was about 6:00 am in the morning and there was a really big storm passing the Boston area. Thunder and lighting could be heard throughout the night. I was drifting in and out of sleep when all of a sudden, the room started to spin. I tried to get up and I fell on the floor, feeling very nauseous. The spinning was speeding up. I started to crawl towards the bathroom. I thought I was dying. No, no this can’t be. You see, two days earlier I had just signed my first book deal for Second Firsts with Hay House. My biggest dream ever. To be a writer. It was all about to come true. The girls were doing so well. I was just remarried. I was finally getting my life back. How could this be happening to me now? The spinning was so bad that the back of my head started to go numb. My left arm felt as if something was squeezing it tight. I was certain I was dying. Scared out of my mind, I started crying. Eric got up and took me to the hospital. They ran MRIs, scans, and every test you can imagine. I spent a week there. When I left the hospital, I was given two folders. One said ‘Vertigo’ the other said ‘stroke.’ They said they think it is possibly Vertigo but they could not rule out the stroke and that I had to take the instructions for both home. Back at home, I was having panic attacks every night as I would fall asleep. I was afraid that it was going to happen again. I believe that when we are mentally and physically pushing our boundaries for growth, our bodies push back. It was not a coincidence that I was making my biggest dream come true while being hospitalized at the same time. Changing our reality literally requires superhuman effort, especially after loss. I bet you have gone through similar things, worse things even. When you were about to create a new life for yourself. You got sick. But there is something here that is important to know. When you are starting over and you are about to step into a new identity, the old one will try to hold you back by physically taking your down. (Click to tweet!) In every way possible. In the most scary ways. It may seem like a coincidence, but it isn’t. You are dismantling a world that had been around you for many years, it won’t go without a fight. Big change requires an awareness that can talk to you while at a hospital bed scared out of your mind thinking that this is just your bad luck. It isn’t. Know that it is your old identity trying to hold on while you are letting it go. I wish someone had told me this very thing then. So if you are reading this from a hospital room somewhere, now you know. And get well soon dear friend. Your new life is waiting for you. With spinningful new beginnings, Christina P.S. Make sure you pre-order the new Second Firsts book. P.P.S. JOIN ME FOR THE TEMPLE JOURNEY: A LIFE AFTER DEATH. REGISTER HERE: https://www.1440.org/programs/faculty-led-programs/personal-growth/self-discovery/temple-journey PPPS. And keep going on your journeys with WHERE DID YOU GO?
Read More