Where should I start from?
Where does the beginning sit in a new story?
Is the beginning at the start of the new experience, or at the end of it.
I have been away inside new adventures for the last few weeks.
I swam in turquoise waters in Greece.
I witnessed a rocket blasting off to space at Cape Canaveral with a friend inside of it.
My eyes going from one world to another, adjusting to the new view.
Something happens when you change reality dramatically.
Where nothing is left the same.
People. Places. Streets. Words. You.
Skies.
All speaking a new language.
Your inner compass becomes turbulent. Until it stabilizes.
But the beginning is not here yet. I can’t find it.
The beginning is not inside the adventure. I looked.
Maybe there will never be a beginning to think about again, because I will not need to begin again.
Is that possible even?
We seek new beginnings because wherever we are, is no longer needed, wanted, chosen. But what if you made your life exist inside many realities, where you leap from one to another. A new beginning would become irrelevant.
Wouldn’t it?
Loss would be minimized.
Love would become everything, everywhere, everyone.
You won’t have time to not love, as something new will always show up ready to be loved by you.
In the last few weeks I met people from all over the world, living lives I have never seen before.
Wanting things I have never wanted, because I didn’t know they existed.
Living in a singular world creates immense loss.
I am just realizing that a monogamous relationship with life is not healthy.
We have created the concept of a new beginning because living a linear existence meant that we had to end one world to begin another.
What if we don’t have to?
What if we exist in many streets, and homes, and places, and most importantly inside many stories. All at the same time.
I don’t want to end my adventures.
I don’t want to begin anything else.
I just want to continue whatever this is.
Because this right here, feels like coming home.
With no beginnings, and no endings,
Christina
It was fall 2007, in Massachusetts, the leaves were starting to change, and everything was looking almost eternal.
Nearly perfect. It was then, when I took on a full time job after the loss of my 35 year old husband making sure I could pay my bills, take care of my kids. Building a new career. Externally, one might say, I seemed as if I was living again.
It was probably two years into that job that I first witnessed what I now call the Waiting Room. Until then, I was convinced that I was well into my new chapter after his loss rebuilding my life.
But something wasn’t quite right. Something was feeling out of place. I was certainly healing, living again, doing all the things that present as a new life but I was not feeling alive.
By this time, it was at least 3 years since his death and even though the intense mourning and grieving had subsided, what was there, was a sense of stuckness. As if there was glue under my feet, and I could not move.
Even laughter was empty. Joy was not fully experienced anymore. That is when I realized I was somewhere else. I was stuck somewhere on the way to a new life. Somewhere in between. And just like that, I knew where I really was, was a waiting room of some kind. I felt as if I was half alive and half dead. Being able to locate the place I was in after my loss, was key in my own life reentry and the reentry of many others.
And this is what I learned.
While in quarantine, we are grieving the loss of our old life but not yet allowed to enter the new one. This place is eerily familiar to the one I and many others find themselves after a tragic loss.
This is why I feel a sense of urgency to share with you why this place should never get comfortable. Why we need to take steps to continue feeling alive even while we are inside this gap. If we don’t, one day it will be very hard to go back to life.
You may be thinking, but why would it be hard to leave isolation?
You see, the longer we stay in a state of isolation and grief, the harder it is to go back to a lively world. The brain’s primary purpose is to now keep you inside and keep you safe. When it’s time to be out of here, it won’t let you go that easy. We can’t let that happen as we will end up with bigger suicide and depression numbers.
We are living in the gap.
We have just begun living in a gap between lives—the life we’ve left behind and the life we have yet to enter. In my book Second Firsts I coined this space the Waiting Room.
“When we’re in the Waiting Room, we’re still attached to the past. In this place, we struggle with our new reality. We are unable to see ourselves clearly and make decisions as we used to. The brain’s ability to plan and reason is temporarily gone.”
Millions of people right now have lost the ability to plan and organize their life. We are not able to reenter fully as we can’t start experimenting with a future life.
We are forced to stay inside and wait.
What happens when we postpone Life.
Postponing life can lead to complicated grief. When Covid-19 feels as if it keeps happening to us, the brain responds with a trauma loop.
In order to interrupt the trauma loop we must take action. You may ask how can I take an action oriented approach while I am forced to stay in a waiting room mode?
I will share with you the how, the what and the when as Life Reentry is both an inner and outer experience. But first let’s get clear as to what is really the Waiting Room.
What is the Waiting Room?
The Waiting Room is deeply rooted in our brain’s evolutionary survival techniques, and it is a chronic condition. It can cause long-term changes in our cognition and perception. Because it is connected to our survival mode, it can be difficult to shut off. We go inside a safe place while we are in danger and in pain. But the longer we stay the harder it gets to leave.
The Waiting Room is not designed for long term residence.
As long as we feel threatened by the Corona Virus our brain cannot devote proper energy toward considering the future.
It’s an evolutionary survival adaptation—the fear takes precedence over other, rational thoughts.
The Waiting Room begins with honest intentions. It represents a safe space. Having a shortlist of self-soothing behaviors and routines is comforting for a fragile state of mind.
The Waiting Room is meant to minimize mental strain while we adjust to our loss. And right now it also represents a physical safe space. It is a matter of life and death. We need it for our safety.
Our self-soothing routines stem from the need to feel safe, but over time, we start to self- identify with them, incorporating them into our personality and lifestyle.
This is not what new life looks like—it’s a signal that we are still living in a state of grief.
The habits fostered by The Waiting Room do not reflect our priorities and goals; rather, they are emotional reflexes created to keep us in survival mode. So let’s see how we can prevent these unwanted emotional and physical responses from happening longer term.
The 5 steps of Life Reentry during Covid-19
Step 1: Get real with how you are feeling.
What is happening right now is overwhelming and it demands our attention. As this stress becomes longer term, we become accustomed to consistently devoting significant mental energy toward coping, leaving important secondary tasks neglected.
Let’s be honest, we are glued to the TV screen counting the number of Coronavirus cases. And because our every day schedule and life structure has dramatically changed, our habits have too.
For example, not getting dressed or showered as you used to do every day.
You may be afraid to go to the grocery store for things you need to get in order to nourish yourself.
You end up with an empty fridge, unpaid bills, unwashed dishes and these things start to feel like normal aspects of life.
We adapt to not caring for ourselves, not getting inadequate nutrition, and letting our feelings go unexpressed.
We also become more focused on maintaining the facade of being “fine” than addressing our trauma.
We have to start by getting real with ourselves as to what is happening inside this Waiting Room. What are we not looking at? What are we not sharing with anyone else? Are we becoming invisible?
One of the very first things we must do is share with others what is taking place in our homes. We must take stock of the current reality. We must share all of our invisible experiences with our family and friends. And we must validate and listen to theirs.
We need to give each other the opportunity to speak truthfully. Whether what we are experiencing is severe or basic, it still needs to be validated.
For example, we are all experiencing the loss of continuity and being surrounded by friends. We have begun to feel distanced and dehumanized, and we find ourselves increasingly detached from the ebb and flow of life.
Neglecting to acknowledge our reality does not protect us from pain. It buries us further inside the gap. Share your home via video with your friends and family. Send pics of your room. Tell someone how you are feeling. Do not become invisible.
Step 2: Plug In to life
Once we start talking, sharing and being aware of how much we have physically neglected ourselves the next step is to start to change that. We must partially shift from observation of self and others to taking action.
Once we identify what we need to change we take a small step which I call a plug in. A plug in is a 5% effort. We don’t want to add more fear in a fear based reality. So we take steps that are easy inside our homes.
We may take a step towards putting our clothes back in the closet after doing the laundry. Or showering first thing in the morning even if we won’t be going anywhere. Have you noticed how much our life has changed?
We went from maybe commuting an hour to work and back keeping up with a very busy work schedule, to not even showering or changing our clothes.
This is how quickly loss of life can take place. Our brain is now fighting with us to hold on to the no shower, dishes in the sink reality and make these new persistent neural pathways habitual.
I know it is hard to believe that when it is time to go back to the world of the living you will struggle with getting up and being ready to go to work. But that you will do. Struggle. Because your brain has made this new routine a habit. Don’t let it. Plug into your life with a hot shower every morning and every other day put on your favorite outfit, will you?
Step 3: Shift your space
This step will help you refocus your mind from the Coronavirus overwhelm, back to your life and self. The objective here is to shift from an identity of being stuck in quarantine to getting back some of the controls of your life. Shifting your mind to an experience we are controlling is key to making sure we are preserving the maps in our brain that have leadership and ownership qualities. This has to be a conscious transfer of mental energy. For example, here is one thing you can do easily.
Establish an area in your home that you call Your breathing space or a designated space that you can access to temporarily step outside of your thoughts of quarantine. Move some chairs around. Get rid of some junk. Paint a wall even.
Being able to displace your pain, even for a brief time, offers a sense of control and an opportunity to be reminded of the positivity in your life. You need and deserve this space. In it, you can focus on what you can control. There are many mantras, thoughts, sentences and ways of thinking that you can act on during this step.
The main thing is that you use your breathing space to maybe read a new book, talk to a fun friend, meditate and even do a bit of yoga.
You can also just be there, and listen to music while being away from the TV set.
Step 4: Discovery
When coping with the loss of our life due to the virus, we can neglect our capacity for happiness. We become preoccupied with the process of maintaining a semblance of our old life and projecting an image of resilience to our friends and families.
Some of the strongest people I know are exhibiting this kind of behavior right now and saying things like: I am fine and well. It could be worse. Ignoring our emotions can help us temporarily avoid stress, but when we hide our feelings, we may forget where we put them.
When the time comes to re-enter life, we may find that the relationships around us no longer reflect what brings us joy. We often maintain friendships out of convenience, boredom, or perceived obligation.
It is important that during this time you allow yourself some truth about your relationships, your career choices, and your true needs and wants.
What is the life you want going forward?
You should no longer be concealing your truth. As you probably have gathered by now, you are learning fast who your true friends are, and because you are spending a lot of time on your own you are getting a sense of who you are now becoming too.
Your goal is not just to reconnect with life; it is to reconnect with the life that you want. Make sure you notice the person you are becoming and let go of the relationships that no longer reflect your truth.
You never know it may be easier now than ever before.
Step 5: Reenter
Whatever you do, make sure you find time to feel fully alive. Whether it’s with connecting with a new friend you made in a private facebook group. Or taking on a new online class you have always wanted to do but never had the time to.
Discovering all these new aspects of yourself while in quarantine requires you to take action on them. You must bring these new interests, new habits and wants to reality.
You may still struggle to shower first thing in the morning but when you do, you go and wear something that represents your new self better.
When you turn on the TV look for the kind of show or movie that brings out the new identity that has been emerging.
Life Reentry can take place inside your quarantine, for sure.
And yes, it is harder to do it while stuck at home, but it doesn’t mean it’s not possible.
You have the tools, the space and the time to stop your brain from keeping you stuck inside a habitual loop of living that mimics a prison. (Click to tweet!)
During this time in our lives, we must meet ourselves with grace, action and above all vulnerability towards the grief we are feeling. If we don’t allow ourselves to get real, get seen and take action now, we will not be ready to face the big world when the time comes.
Here’s to morning showers, breathing spaces and some new friendships.
Christina Rasmussen
What if I told you that the journey you are on is so long that you can’t see the end of the tunnel.
That every day will feel like eternity, and every step is so small that you can’t tell if you are healing or not.
Then what if I said to you that some days you will feel as if you are going backwards.
Other days you will be stuck and won’t be able to move at all.
You see, this is the absolute truth of life after loss.
Anyone who tries to sugar coat it, is lying.
Anyone who puts a timer on it is a fool.
Here is what I discovered on this long road.
Grief is grief at first. Relentless. Gut wrenching.
And sure you go through the stages during that time.
Denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.
But you are not done. Not done at all.
A couple of years or more down the road you find yourself somewhere nobody told you about. This place is nowhere.
A town without a name.
It almost feels like you go blind and deaf as soon as you enter.
Nobody said that after these stages of grief you will still not be done.
It will almost feel like vertigo.
The up is down. And the down is up.
You will be inside a loop. Like a broken record.
Remember the record players we used to have?
When there was a scratch on the record the dial would keep jumping to the same two second track. That’s what life after the stages of grief is like.
This is also why I have spent 10 years of my life trying to fix the record so we can experience Life Reentry. The gap. The scratch. The loop.
Maybe small. Almost invisible. But don’t be fooled.
It holds millions of us.
The hidden stage of grief is what I have coined the Waiting Room.
The tough thing though is, that it is not a stage.
Or anything that makes you believe it is a passing thing.
A place without an end or a beginning.
This is what truly happens to millions of people after loss. (Click to tweet!)
The reason why I have been talking about this for a whole decade is so that you know where you are when you are lost.
So you can see. And hear again.
When I am no longer here, Life Reentry will be in all Academia.
Therapists, doctors and scientists will still be able to hear my voice yelling.
“Get out of the Waiting Room.”
I will teach this forever because I want you out of the city of Nowhere.
I want you to find a new chapter to go to.
You see now, you are homeless.
Hanging upside down in the middle of nowhere.
You think you are home. You think this is the aftermath of loss.
You think you are going somewhere.
You are, but not if the stuckness part of this long journey lasts forever.
You and I will die there. And I can’t have that happen.
So here’s what you need to do.
Go get the book Second Firsts. Even if you have not lost a spouse.
This is for every loss.
And start doing the work of unstuckenss.
It will save your life.
Do you know what the first step is?
I call it Invisible losses.
The scratch on the record.
The loop on the track. The blindness.
They all come from the losses you can’t see.
Not secondary losses. I know so many people confuse my Invisible Loss work with the word secondary.
The losses I am talking about are invisible.
Hard to track down.
And unless we figure out what we have really lost we can’t get unstuck.
The work of Life Reentry is not easy, but it is your only way out.
Promise you will get the book. Not for me. But for you.
Promise you will say yes to seeing all the things that hurt you.
No matter how hard it is to look at them.
And I promise you that one day your community church, your school, your local therapists will all be trained on this so you can get all the help you need to get pulled out of that Nowhere place.
I am working on this behind the scenes for you all.
Hold on tight.
And start the work on your own until I can get to you.
With many blind spots and invisible losses,
Christina
P.S. A few days left to register for my weekend workshop.
PPS. And I hope you have listened to this week’s Dear Life Podcast about money after a loss.
How do you find a way to live life on your terms?
How do you shed the armor of pretences?
The manners you have been taught since you can remember.
How do you find your way inside your own dreams vs the ones you have been shown?
The ones that played on television.
The wants your neighbors expressed with their perfect green lawns.
The one dimensional view of life coming from just one part of the world.
How do you see inside the blindness?
How do you hear the whispers of a far away land?
And yet when you do start to see inside the blind spots, and hear the whispers as loud voices, They tell you, you must be having a mid-life crisis.
And I want to cry for us.
We are prisoners with invisible bars.
When we start to see them they tell us we are losing our minds.
We are going through something.
We are grieving. We are aging.
We are not ourselves.
Oh dear friend.
I wonder who are they?
The ones who have done this to us.
When did it start?
The training of the pretence.
The correctness. The hypnosis.
It was done by those we trusted. It was done early.
And it was done to them by those before them, and before them.
So they didn’t know what they were doing to us.
That they were building prison bars around our lives.
When we found ourselves questioning our entire existence.
When we asked what is this all for?
When we stopped trying to impress everyone.
When we saw that the things we were driven to create were not our dreams.
We exploded. We isolated.
We gained weight. We got sick. We got depressed.
There would have been no green lawns.
No accolades. No hierarchy. Just a real life. (Click To Tweet!)
I realized this when I was in the midst of my own perfect green lawn.
Right there, I started digging the ground with my foot.
And I couldn’t stop. I got tired of the upkeep. The water bill.
The perfect color of green. I wanted to see daisies.
I cried in the midst of all this greeness, confused as to why I no longer saw its beauty.
You see, I was just waking up not knowing I had been asleep.
But waking up alone.
All of my neighbors still watering their lawns.
I yelled. I called out their names.
I jumped up and down waving at them.
And when they saw me they said, she is having a midlife crisis.
Look at all the holes her lawn has.
And here it is, the most crucial part of waking up.
You have to know who is the one really sleeping.
Is it the person watering their lawn or the person digging their feet in the ground looking for daisies?
With a dozen daisies,
Christina
P.S. The first coffee date episode on the Dear Life with Christina Rasmussen podcast drops tomorrow. I answer your question about the afterlife.
Make sure you are subscribed on itunes.
Or go to listen here on Saturday morning: www.dearlifepodcast.com/coffee
I have to tell you.
I am getting too used to living outside the box. With the minority.
From outside the mainstream. From the corner of the universe.
As a matter of fact, it is kind of fun to say outrageous things.
Shock your friends and family members.
I am enjoying this. More than I ever thought I would.
Imagine discovering that living outside the box is more fun than inside of it.
Oh, my world.
What was I thinking for the last 46 years?
Keeping people happy. Staying in my lane. Pleasing everyone.
And all this time this new existence had been waiting for me.
Destroying the idea of me in other people’s minds has been the most liberating thing I have ever done. (Click to tweet!)
And now that I have done it for a few weeks. Wow. It is freeing. Mind-bending. Healing.
It all started when I had to write the book I didn’t want to write.
Where Did You Go? Took me outside of my box and threw me so far away that I could never find my way back.
This is it. The boxed in life is over.
I put together a little guide for you so you can find your way out of that box of yours also.
Brace yourself.
The Guide To Being Outrageous Before, After And While Grieving.
Yes, you read right. This is a guide for all humans even before they experience tragic reasons to live fully. Enough with waiting to be shaken so much that we have to change our lives only when something terribly bad happens.
Here we go.
1. Are you making too many people happy?
If most people in your life are happy with you there is a very good chance that you are not living your truth. Of course, there are exceptions to this. Just make sure you are the exception. And if that’s the case, good for you. If not, keep reading.
2. Who are you afraid you are going to lose?
Here is a fact for you. The ones who love you will still love you when you go outside your box. They will recognize you. Follow you out and come with you. The so-called outrageous things you are doing, are not outrageous for them. They are just more parts of you they can love.
3. How much do you really care about yourself?
One of the biggest discoveries I made was that I did not really care about myself much at all. Pleasing other people directly or indirectly makes you the last choice. If, even a choice at all. Once you start to make the top of the ‘pleasing people’ list. You actually start to love yourself. I never thought self-love can come from outrageous actions and fearless choices. I am sitting here shaking my head with this insight. Even depression can lift. Even weight loss can happen. It is one of the most beautiful experiences I have ever had.
4. Why are you putting yourself and your life on stage?
Fear comes to you when you are worrying about what other people will think of your decision. What will they think about your competency, your abilities? Failure is truly just a stage show. Not a behind-the-scenes experience. We fail in front of people. But we fail ourselves behind-the-scenes. The stage show is the ego’s life, not your soul’s. The soul just wants to express itself in art, science, words, and creations. It doesn’t care what other people will think about its creations. It is about expression, not measurement. I’ve had some harsh words with my ego lately. I told her to stop. Enough with it all. You see my ego will keep trying to put a box around me wherever I go. I just have to outrun her. And so do you.
5. Is your need to be liked more important than your loyalty to yourself?
I always thought that loss taught me to be myself more. To live life my way. And it did. And I have. But did I really live life completely on my terms? Did I really live the way I deeply needed? Nope. I still needed for everyone to like me. I wanted to be a good friend. The likable teacher. The worthy partner. The intensely present mother. The list is long. When you stop caring about being chosen, being important to others, being worthy of someone’s attention, you die in your old life and you are born in a much bigger one.
Your goals change. Your dreams get updated in an instant. You actually find out who you really are. You say things that surprise you. You do things that shock even you.
You might as well change your name too because if you keep choosing yourself versus the world you become someone else so radically different that the only thing that will stay the same might just be the name you were given.
6. How do you start to live life out of the box?
And if you are wondering how to begin your life out of the box, here is what I would say–sit down and list all the things you do for others that you don’t enjoy at all. Not the things you do to pay your bills. Not talking about that. This is not this kind of blog.
This is about the thousands of things you do every day that you don’t enjoy but it keeps you on stage.
A very important distinction.
So, for example:
For your job: List all the things you do every day at the office that you dislike that you do because of how it looks to your boss, to your peers, and to your team. They hold back the dragon in you. I know what you’re thinking. The dragon? Yes, the dragon.
This is about living outrageously and boldly, not about just being happy and content. You have a dragon inside of you that has been held back because you think if he/she is let loose the stage will be messed up and everyone will think you’ve lost your mind. Make a mess. They will recover. It is your life. Not theirs.
For your home: If you live in a house you don’t enjoy but worry what your kids, your partner, your friends will think about your move, that goes on your list. Get it sold.
For your relationships: If you are in a relationship that is good enough but doesn’t deeply satisfy you, yup, it goes on your list. When you move out of the relationship box you are freeing two people at once. This is an act of kindness. Yup.
For your closet: If you have clothes in your closet you wear because they fit in with everyone else’s perception of you, it goes on that list. This one might be harder even than the others. You probably don’t even know what kind of clothes you would choose for yourself. It’s been that long.
One last thing for you to remember.
True self-expression is a human act.
Without it, we perish.
Without it, we self destruct.
Without it, we only exist in shadows.
A shadow existence can destroy a whole life. With suicide. With crime. With lack of care for our environment and world. For other humans. For other planets. For other species. Yup. I am going to keep things out of my box.
This is much more important than a blog, or some silly self-help advice.
Stay out of your box, far away from your own shadow. And if you ever find yourself in someone else’s shadow. Run. Run faster than your legs can take you.
My wish for you is that you find your way to days so outrageous that you pinch yourself.
To new friendships with people who like you not because you fit in their life but because they love how they fit in yours.
May you inspire other people’s adventures out into the wild and open seas.
And last but not least, you are born out of an expression of someone else’s quest to choose themselves.
Now it is your turn.
And if you have gone through tragic losses like I have, the longer you wait to step out of the boxes, waiting rooms and shadows, the less you will like yourself.
This is truly the most personal decision you will ever make.
And the only one that can ever save your life.
With outrageousness,
Christina
P.S. Grab my new book Where Did You Go? and journey with me and many others in our private Where Did You Go? Facebook group. The link is in the resources section of the book. See you all there. Journeying with all of you to other worlds has been one of the most fulfilling and outrageous experiences of my life. You don’t know how much this new book has saved my life. https://www.amazon.com/Where-Did-You-Go-Life-Changing/dp/0062689622
I started this letter at a time when nobody was writing about grief, or even about grief and the Holidays.
And those who were, were not discussing the elephant in the room.
The loneliness.
The deep sadness of the Holidays.
You see, happy seasons, are the saddest seasons for people who are grieving.
Even the sun shining brightly in the winter, can feel like loss.
Even bells ringing.
Carols.
People with gift bags walking down the streets can set you off.
The triggers are so many.
I put together a small list that can help just a little during the next few weeks.
1- Make this the most untraditional holiday you have ever had. If you normally celebrate with the tree, the big dinner and the works, try something completely different this year. Go to the beach instead, or stay in bed all day if you need to. Choose your way of the holidays and don’t feel guilty. This is YOUR life.
2- Speak the truth every day. Let it out. Scream it if you have to. It is YOUR voice.
3- Make a wish, but don’t stop there! Take one small action and use the Holiday season to begin something new. To make that wish come true. That is when you will start seeing the impossible become possible. Time does not heal all wounds, action does.
4- Change something inside your house. Even something that nobody else can see but you.
5- If you get invited to dinner and you don’t feel like going, say NO thank you and go and do whatever you want. Yes, whatever you want.
6- Stop buying gifts for people you don’t care about. As a matter of fact if you don’t feel like buying gifts don’t buy them. Don’t be trapped in that fake polite space after loss. You don’t need this pressure. Free yourself from the gift expectations and send an email to the people in your life telling them that you are going to do holidays your way this year.
7- Remember, it is just a few days of craziness and you have survived much worse, you can do this.
8- Buy something for yourself that is very unlike you. Building your new identity can start as a holiday gift to you.
9- Above all find a moment to say a prayer for yourself.
10- And in that prayer ask for what you need not just for the holidays but for every day after that.
This holiday season be true to you.
Even if it means people won’t like you anymore.
You have been through really hard times, who cares what they think.
I am not the most popular person, I don’t pretend to like people, or visit with anyone I don’t really want to see.
Loss has taught us that life is short and we should not be wasting trying to please other people when we are dying inside.
The Holidays for those who are grieving is like feeling the regular pain you normally feel times 100. (Click Here to Tweet!)
Treat yourself to special things, and if it means your special thing is the Hallmark channel, then let that be your companion during this time of the year.
You get to say how it goes, it is hard enough as it is.
With selfish wishes,
Christina
PS.WHERE DID YOU GO is nearly here. I can’t believe it.
AMAZON LINK: https://www.amazon.com/Where-Did-You-Go-Life-Changing/dp/0062689622/
PPS.This is where you can find this letter on the blog
Maybe I will stay inside the ups and downs.
The highs and lows.
After all, the roller coaster makes you a good writer.
Did you know?
It makes you brave.
It makes your hair look crazy too. 🙂
Your heart beats as if there are two hearts inside of you.
You don’t have time for any kind of small talk.
And you hold on tight.
No drama.
Just lots of back and forth between low and high.
Between grief and love.
Yes and no.
Risk and safety.
But that is when so many people leave the roller coaster.
They are done with it all.
The highs are not worth the lows.
Love is not worth the grief.
Having two heartbeats instead of one takes its toll.
But for those of us who stay, find themselves in the most beautiful skies.
Flying in and out of clouds.
Breathing in the crisp air.
And yes finding ourselves inside the very low places too.
When there, we check in with our soul.
Learn. Process. Feel. And write.
Oh the writing from the lows is magnificent.
I am writing you from there today.
Just experienced rejection back to back.
Basically double low.
Low. Low.
Loss. Loss.
Rejection. Rejection.
When the roller coaster stays down low for longer than normal the heartbeats also slow down, almost as if they are gone.
You find yourself inside the low but also inside the silence.
And when there is only one low and not a double one, the silence doesn’t have time to arrive. Inside the silence you have a chance to find yourself.
You see, you can’t find yourself inside the highs. It’s too wild.
Your mind is too busy thinking about the greatness of the high.
Everyone is cheering you.
And you may even forget your humility. Your mortality.
And your high risk of loss.
Who would I ever be without my roller coaster?
Certainly not a writer.
Not a helper.
I think I would have good hair though. 🙂
And I would fit in.
Fitting in is not part of our life after loss. Tragedy makes us stand out, whether we like it or not. (Click Here to Tweet!)
With love to all of my roller coaster riders,
Christina
P.S. Order the Where Did You Go? book here: https://www.amazon.com/Where-Did-You-Go-Life-Changing/dp/0062689622
I moved from Greece to England when I was 18 years old.
My english was ok but certainly not fluent in writing or speaking.
And I was attempting to get into college.
It took me three years to pass the exams and get language fluency.
And because of that everyone else in my classes, in my dorms and in my everyday college experience were 3 years younger than me.
I used to hide my age.
When everyone was turning 21 I was turning 24.
I was always 3 years late.
Also, always older than all the boys I knew.
And no matter what I did, how hard I worked that ‘3 year later than everyone else’ feeling was always there.
Then for a few years that feeling was gone, I had moved to the US, started my own family and things started to feel ‘normal.’
Then he was diagnosed with late stage cancer and died, and I lost a whole decade.
I nearly lost all of my 30s.
I was 30 when he was diagnosed.
We battled the cancer every day for years.
I was 34 when he died.
And I battled devastating grief for years.
38 when I started to get back on my feet again.
This woman had never been here before.
I believed for the first time that I could be a builder, a founder, an author, someone who had something to say to the world.
But that old voice in my head came back running.
But aren’t you really behind?
Like at least 10 years too late for anything of this magnitude.
You are about to be 40 soon and you want to start from scratch?
Yes I do.
The faint voice of the new woman would say.
No you don’t.
The loud speaker kind of voice would respond back.
And it went like this for the first few years.
The battle of the voices.
I have been quieting the voice of ‘you are late to the party’ for most of my life now.
I am now 46 years old and I finally learned something that I did not know my whole life.
And it’s not it is never too late.
But it is arrive late, and leave early.
In the last 8 years I have lived many lives in one.
I have done work that it takes people lifetimes to do.
And I know that if I was not late to the party I could have never ever become this version of me.
Now I look at my life very differently.
As long as my hands can type, my eyes can see and my brain can guide me I will be creating until I die.
Later than everyone else.
Behind.
With a language that arrived in my life also late.
But I will always have an advantage, I experienced tragedy sooner than everyone else.
And received the wisdom of it at least a decade or two before most people.
The combination of being late with wisdom that comes from tragedy you can almost step outside of time and space and create from there.
Time is irrelevant to people like you and I. However late to the party you feel, know that the wisdom you have because of your loss adds time to your clock. (Click Here to Tweet!)
Infinite amounts.
You are early.
And always will be.
Here’s to creating until our last breath.
With being very late and proud of it,
Christina
P.S. Order the Where Did You Go? book here: https://www.amazon.com/Where-Did-You-Go-Life-Changing/dp/0062689622
You are one tiny thought away from a completely different life. (Click Here to Tweet!)
But we live inside a room with no windows.
A room that keeps us thinking this is the only room.
There are Infinite rooms.
I didn’t really understand this fully until the last couple of years.
You see, all of us are capable of occupying many rooms.
Some of us can live in many different ones at the same time.
Others can move linearly from one room to the next.
And some stay in the same room forever.
These rooms are separate life paths.
Separate relationships.
Careers. Dreams.
When we go through a devastating loss we are told the room we occupied all this time is no longer available to us.
This is harsh, but true.
We are then told to pack our things and move into a different room.
Yes.
But.
A lot of us go back inside the room and try to stay.
We think that we can make it work.
Sure it is darker than before but it is better than a new room.
Or no room at all.
Our mind lies to us.
It tells us this is the only room that exists.
Exploring is a waste of time.
And we stay.
Stay in the dark room.
The lonely room.
The room with no future.
The room of ghosts. Silence.
In there, the loneliness lady lives.
In there, the anniversary train visits.
In there, the room becomes the Waiting Room.
At this point, the lock turns.
The door closes more permanently.
We go to bed. And we die there.
Yes so many of us never find our way out.
I am going to now pull you out of this picture.
Give you a bird’s eye view.
Imagine I can take you up from your room, like a drone would.
See yourself inside that room, laying on the bed.
As we pull higher up, you start to see all the other rooms right next to yours.
Some of them are big.
With incredible views.
Others have many rooms in one space. Floors even.
And they connect to other rooms.
We keep going higher up.
And we see a whole city of beautiful rooms with many lives, and new dreams, breathtaking landscapes.
I am going to stop us for a second right here.
Take it all in, it is the truth.
The truth your mind has been trying to hide from you.
You have so many new possibilities.
There are so many choices.
Now we are going to go back, back to that room.
We descend slowly, with tears in our eyes, knowing how we nearly missed all these other rooms and lives we could have had.
You are now inside the old life, in your room.
You look around you and you now know this is no longer your life.
You grab your things. Not all of them, just enough.
And walk out.
Your next room won’t be visible at first as you come out of the old room.
But keep taking the steps.
All of a sudden you will see not just one new room but a few.
You will learn that in this next chapter after your loss, you have choices.
Options. You get to choose from a variety of rooms.
You get to be a room walker.
As you keep moving forward you find out what I found out.
That your life belongs to many rooms, and your keys in your pocket can open more doors than you ever thought were possible.
To thousands of rooms,
Christina
P.S. Order the Where Did You Go? book here: https://www.amazon.com/Where-Did-You-Go-Life-Changing/dp/0062689622
I hide inside moments.
I literally hide there.
I am so afraid of change.
Whenever something new is on its way to me, I hide inside time.
Do you know why I created the Life Reentry® work?
Because I needed it to get myself out of all the hiding I was doing.
I am the master hider.
The master waiting room resident.
It’s not even that I am stuck but I like to hide from life, from big things, from new things.
I still do.
But I realized lately that I can’t be so afraid anymore.
Hiding is a luxury I can no longer afford.
Fear is something I must start to reject. (Click to Tweet!)
I used to shake like a leaf when I would step on stage.
I hated myself for saying yes to such big responsibilities and dreams.
“What were you thinking?”
“You should have been hiding Christina.”
“I know, I know. I will hide better next time.”
Next time I hid so well, I didn’t even know I was hiding.
That is how I became masterful at it.
Oh you have no idea how deceiving is my own waiting room.
It has a whole life in it.
The life inside the waiting room has me living an overweight life, a life inside possibly 2 miles radius.
It is a life but not my life.
Not the life my destiny has chosen for me.
I am furious with myself for letting fear guide me inside of it all, even as I was climbing out.
I was being ushered back in.
Willingly. Yes.
I let my fears take the lead.
I didn’t try to stop them.
Well, no more.
I have learned that fear will occupy your brain like a drug addict.
I realized that hiding is not for the living. I was killing myself and didn’t know it.
I saw how easy it is to choose the wrong things.
It is almost automatic.
The wrong snack.
The silly use of time.
The lack of movement.
The stagnation.
At first it is a choice, but very quickly it becomes a default setting.
Getting out of that is almost impossible.
People have died there, inside the default.
The waiting room. The not living.
This letter is for you if you have been afraid, in hiding and in a default setting you don’t even remember choosing.
And do you know when it all starts?
When our heart has been so badly broken that hiding is a life savior.
We think it is.
And when we realize it never was, it is too late.
Yesterday it was Bjarne’s 47th birthday.
He only made it to his 35th.
He would have been furious with me if he knew that I chose moments with no life in them. That I chose to hide instead of flying.
No more.
“Come to the edge,” he said.
“We can’t, we’re afraid!” they responded.
“Come to the edge,” he said.
“We can’t, We will fall!” they responded.
“Come to the edge,” he said.
And so they came.
And he pushed them.
And they flew.” ― Guillaume Apollinaire
May we fly.
Christina,
PS. Order the Where Did You Go? book here: https://www.amazon.com/Where-Did-You-Go-Life-Changing/dp/0062689622