Choosing your breath-the loss of trust in yourself

This week's exercise was to do something ridiculously positive for yourself this week. Going through a stillbirth you definetly feel like your body has betrayed you and it is hard to learn to trust and love your body again, to let go of the feelings of guilt and shame and feel good again.

I love the message behind this week's application, as it is about self-care and finding a way to heal your soul again.

I had a perfect week for this on Crowe lake and was able to reconnect with nature, with Jeff, and with myself in such a peaceful setting.

Four years

As I type that title it is hard to believe four years have passed.

I read this quote the other day that said...

To those of you that roll your eyes and say you barely had them at all...how could we miss them so much in our hearts...

We have seen them live a thousand times...

We have seen their first steps, their first day of school, their weddings and their children. 

We have had them forever in our minds.

Angel would have been starting school this year and that's a milestone that is hard to ignore. So many moments that we've been cheated. My heart will always ache for her and miss her. 

To outsiders maybe I look as I did before - but I know the deep changes she has made to my heart and soul, and I live with her inside my heart as I search for a life with meaning - yet without her here.

Happy birthday Angel!

Choosing your breath - memories that haunt us

The exercise this week was about "blotting out" the memories that haunt us. Given Angel's birthday is only a couple days away, I have been having a lot of flashbacks to that fateful day, and it wasn't hard to put these down on paper.

I didn't have the tools Francesca suggested to do the blotting so I decided to light the paper on fire. It felt therapeutic to me, to burn those thoughts away. The thoughts of fear and despair. I'd rather focus on my love and remembrance of my daughter. Missing her so much. 

Donation for Angel

Angel is turning 4 in a few days - her heavenly birthday that is. She should have been starting school this year. My mom and I donated two backpacks, one for a girl and one for a boy, to children in need through my aunts church, in Angel's memory.

Shopping for these was definetly a trigger. But I did it. And although I sobbed in the car afterwards, I am holding on to the fact that this will help two little humans and make them very happy on the first day of school. 

Choosing your breath: healing words

The challenge this week was to write a haiku about my grief. I wrote two for my baby girl xxx

Falling off a mountain

Choosing your breath: secondary loss wheel

Losing my Angel led to so many other losses in my life, it was the stone in the water but there were endless ripples from the experience. I grieve for her and I grieve for all of the secondary losses that came with it.