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Acceptance of death of a loved one. Can we ever do it?

Acceptance of death of a loved one. Can we ever do it?

I want to talk about acceptance and what does acceptance mean? I hear a lot of people say, “I can never accept what’s happened. No, I’m not accepting it. I can’t. I cannot accept, it’s not okay that my partner died.”

So, acceptance, I think we have emotions attached to certain words. We have meanings attached to words, and we all have different meanings for different words.

And one of those is the word acceptance. We hear very often about acceptance and that we must learn to accept the fact that our partner has died. And many of us say, “no, I can’t do it. It’s not okay. I can’t accept that this person’s gone.” So what I think is good to do is to just define what we mean by acceptance?

What I do not mean by acceptance is saying, “well, it’s okay. I don’t mind that they’ve gone, it’s all okay. “That to me is not acceptance. It’s not okay. I am never going to be okay with the fact that Claire is dead, and I’m sure many of you are never going to be okay and that’s fine.

That is not what acceptance is for me, and I find this helpful. Acceptance is stopping the fight with wanting her back. It’s stopping the fight with those mixed emotions. “I’m so desperately sad, but I so love them.” or ” I so want her back.” or ” I’m so happy for the years I’m so desperately sad.”

Acceptance is stopping the fight. It’s acknowledging that that person has gone and saying:

“I feel crap. Terrible, awful. , and that’s a feeling. Well done, Mark. Well done. You’ve noticed that feeling, well done. It’s a feeling. Just sit with it for a moment. Be with it for a moment and let the feeling pass, because another feeling will turn up later.It may be the same one. It may be a different one. It may be a feeling about something else, but it’s just a feeling.”

My therapist described it to me like farts. She said, it’s just a fart, just let it go. Fart the feeling and let it go. And I think to me, that is acceptance. It’s still having those feelings but we’re not fighting them. We’re not fighting saying, “oh, it’s horrible. I don’t wanna feel like this.” We’re not saying, “oh, this person’s gone. They should be here.” We’re just saying “they’ve gone, it’s shit. I feel crap. Well done. That’s a feeling. Let it go and another feeling comes along”

… that is acceptance.

So I wonder can you get to a place of giving up the fight for wanting something different?

For feeling something different. And to live with the feeling as it is, to stop fighting and to use that as a definition of acceptance. Let me know, I’d love to hear from you.

Our first kiss

Our first kiss

On this day in 1985 Claire and I had our first kiss, she even wrote it in her anniversary diary… She was soppy like that!

A year or two after she died I lost that anniversary diary and, being a man with a terrible memory for birthdays and anniversaries, I couldn’t remember when the date was… Boy, did I panic until I found it again.

Such beautiful and wonderful memories.

I’m filled with such warmth and enjoy at the thought of this day nearly 40 years ago.

And at the same time I’m filled with the most bitter sadness.

Such incredible loss, such sorrow and still so many tears.

But all of that is okay.

Conflicting emotions, held in harmony, one on each hand, both with the same highest common purpose to remind me of the wonderful years I spent with the most beautiful woman.

As I look at those emotions, one on each hand I can see them talking to one another, one of them is crying, one of them is smiling, and yet they both know they are there to serve me, to look after me and to care for me.

There’s no fighting between them, just harmony, the yin and the yan.

They gave up the fighting years ago, and it was the best thing they ever did.

Happy anniversary my love…

Dealing with immense pain and suffering after the death of our partner

Dealing with immense pain and suffering after the death of our partner

When we have a huge amount of pain the temptation is to say that we suffer. I think there’s a huge difference between recognising the fact of our loss, acknowledging how we feel about that fact and then going on to suffer.

In this video I talk about the difference between acknowledgement, feeling and suffering and how knowing the difference can help.

Coping with a wedding anniversary after spouse’s death

Coping with a wedding anniversary after spouse’s death

Coping with a wedding anniversary after spouse's death

On the day of writing this it is my wedding anniversary.

It would’ve been 30 years today, and I have to say Claire and I had genuinely a most wonderful relationship, she was most certainly taken much too young.

So the question is, how do we cope after the death of a spouse on wedding anniversaries?

It can often be really difficult because other people don’t know what to do or say so they don’t send cards.

They don’t phone as they usually would.

And it feels as though everyone else has forgotten that love and that amazing day we had – apart from me – and apart from you, of course, if you’re in the same situation.

So here’s what I do.

Focus on the now, the right now, right this instant, right this moment.

And right this moment, the sun is shining. I’ve got some beautiful scenery behind me and everything is good. The moment now only becomes ‘not good’ when I start to compare.

If I compare to the past, if I compare to what went before, if I compare to what was seemingly so unfair, then suddenly ‘now’ seems very difficult.

If I compare now to the future, to what should’ve been happening – Claire and I should be growing old together – We should be traveling the world – We should be living in the life with our camper van and our dog – Again, ‘now’ seems very difficult.

So now only becomes difficult when we compare to the past or when we compare to the future. And the thing is, the past is all in our head and it’s a story. And the future hasn’t happened yet and it’s all in our head and is a story.

So when we focus just on right this instance, right now, without comparing to the past, without comparing to the future, just what is right now, then we can have peace.

And right this instant, I’m feeling good.

Not comparing to the future, not comparing to the past, just now.

How to overcome waves of grief

How to overcome waves of grief

Grief often hits me in waves of sadness, and it can be difficult riding the waves of grief… Here’s a little technique that I found to be really useful in the grieving process.This week I have been knocked sideways by finding a “Dream Catcher” life goal planner that Claire wrote, she’d set goals for 1,5,10 &20 years hence – in career, fun, family, friends, romance, location, money and health…I never knew she’d written it…Imagine how I felt as I read it!

Here’s a coping strategy I’ve just started using, please do let me know what you think…

Transcript – 4 steps to cope with a wave of grief

We very often have these huge waves of grief that come over us in our horrible situation. What I want to address in this little video is a technique that I have used to overcome those waves of grief.

This is what happened to me this week. I was looking through some photographs and I found the little book that Claire wrote and she’s called it her dream catcher. And in her dream catcher book, she has written what will be happening to her in one year, five years, 10 years and 20 years from the day she wrote this book on the 17th of March, 2009. And she died almost to the day, four years later.

And in this book, she’d written what she wants to be doing with her career, with fun, family, friends, environment, romance, money and health. And when I read what Claire wanted to be doing in her life, what her dreams were, boy, can I tell you that thumped me in the heart. That got me. An overwhelming wave of grief hit me, even though it’s eight years ago that she died.

I want to share with you four little steps that I’ve started to use when I feel these waves of grief. Give these a go.

Step number one is to notice it’s a feeling. Wow, I’ve had a feeling. Notice it’s a feeling.

Step number two, this is the tricky one. Don’t label the feeling. When we label things of “oh, that was grief” or “oh, that was a bad one” or “that was something else”. That’s when we go off on a story. We label it as something and then we say, “Oh yeah, well when I’ve experienced that, I should be doing this or feeling this and that’s not fair.” And we’re off, we’re off on a story. And all of that happens in our head. If we just feel it and do not label it, don’t label it. It’s a feeling, that’s it? That’s where it stops. No labeling, no stories. It’s a feeling.

Step 3 is to self sooth. If we’d experienced this and we were telling a friend how horrible this wave of grief was, they probably put their arms around us and laid to soothe us and we can do the same. And we can say to ourselves, “That is horrible. It’s horrible you have to go through that. That’s so unfair that you have to go through that. What a horrible thing to have to go through. You poor thing.” And self sooth because it’s important that we can do that for ourselves.

And step 4 is to notice that we’re suffering and that suffering is a human condition and it’s the one thing that draws all humans together. And because we’ve not labeled our suffering, we’ve just noticed it’s a feeling, we’re not comparing it with anybody else because that will be a label and then we’re often a story. We’re not judging it against anybody else because that will be a label and then we’re often a story. We’re just noticing it’s a feeling, we’re self soothing and we’re recognizing that this is what makes us human. We are not alone. I’m not alone. This is what humans do. We suffer. And that’s a feeling and I can self sooth.

Just try those four steps the next time you have that feeling of overwhelming grief. Notice it, don’t label it, self sooth and recognize that this is what makes you human and you are not alone.

Grief and Kintsugi – Adding to The Beauty of What Was

Grief and Kintsugi – Adding to The Beauty of What Was

The Japanese art form called Kintsugi 金継ぎ “golden joinery” is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with lacquer that is dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver or platinum. The artform, as a philosophy treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise.

It’s truly beautiful.

Tea bowl, Korea, Joseon dynasty, 16th century AD, Mishima-hakeme type, buncheong ware, stoneware with white engobe and translucent, greenish-gray glaze, gold lacquer - Ethnological Museum, Berlin - DSC02061

Kinsugi is a centuries-old art form which relies on a few guiding principles:

  • Breaks and cracks should be emphasised rather than hidden or disguised.
  • The repaired piece should be even more beautiful than the original.
  • The repaired piece should have a second lease of life.
  • The break or repair should be treated as part of the history of the object.
  • Flaws and imperfections are something to be embraced.

All of this is held in perfect harmony with, and not contrary to the fact that the object was indeed beautiful in its first iteration, before it smashed.

Living with grief has many similarities.

Before Claire died I was very happy with my life, I wouldn’t want anything to change, life was beautiful with her.

And then this awful thing happened, my life was smashed apart, broken into a 1000 pieces.

I could stare at the all of those pieces and wish for that life to be reinstated. Somehow, magically those pieces should reform themselves, with no cracks, into the beautiful life it was before.

Except that will never happen.

So instead, I choose to treat the flaws and imperfections that were caused as something to be embraced. Those cracks are now part of my history, and as such add beauty.

Some people like the look of Kintsugi, some people might prefer the look of the item before. Neither are right. Neither are wrong.

Regardless of whether you like Kintsugi or not, there’s no going back. There’s no way to put things back the way they were before, so I’m moving forwards, celebrating the past and adding to it rather than taking away.

I don’t think this is a viewpoint we can clearly see immediately in the aftermath of the death of someone close to us.

It’s all too raw, too painful and we want nothing more than to have everything put back the way it was before.

I do however think there comes a point of acceptance. Acceptance of both the pain and the fact of the death.

The question then becomes, what do we do with that acceptance. Do we sit back and idly allow life to pass us by, everyday looking at the smashed pieces on the floor and wondering why we can’t put things back the way they were. Or, do we treasure all of those broken pieces and painstakingly reassemble what we can, with love, with care and by actually adding to the beauty of what was there before?

Do widows celebrate a wedding anniversary? – You bet we do!

Do widows celebrate a wedding anniversary? – You bet we do!

TRANSCRIPT:
Hello, and welcome to a video from me, Mark at Lost Without Her. It’s been quite some considerable time since I posted a video. And as ever these are motivated or stimulated by conversations that I have with other people.

I saw a post the other day on one of the widows and widowers forums about wedding anniversaries and celebrating, if that’s the right word, but thinking about our wedding anniversaries. And I know from my perspective, that our wedding anniversary was a day that I found immensely difficult after Claire had died, because that was the one day in the year which was uniquely ours.

Her birthday was, Claire’s birthday, my birthday, was my birthday, we may have done different things on those days but our wedding anniversary was a day that was us, we, together. So those wedding anniversaries after she died were so difficult to deal with.

I saw someone on one of these forums saying, “It’s my wedding anniversary coming up, I just don’t know how I’m going to cope. This is awful, this happens every year and I can’t celebrate it anymore.” And this just brought to mind for me, the book, The Power Of Now by Eckhart Tolle, I really strongly recommend you read it. He talks about living in the now, in the moment.

We only have stress and problems in the now, when we compare it to the past or when we compare to the future. And the past is just a series of encoded messages that we’ve got in our brain, we’ve deleted, distorted, generalized things that we’ve had in the past, and we may not actually remember the exact things as they were. So we’ve just got this kind of distorted memory in our brain, we remember what we kind of want to remember. And the future hasn’t happened yet, we’re just creating a future in our mind.

So the past is in our mind and the future is in our mind. And when we consider the now, the past and the future, if we don’t compare them to now, they disappear, we can have a truly good experience – now.

I want you to think about your wedding anniversary, that if I think about my wedding anniversary and I take myself back to that day, and if you do this now, see what you saw, hear what you heard and feel those emotions of being in that day.

It feels fabulous, it feels amazing.

It’s beautiful, it’s wonderful.

It’s such a good feeling.

And feeling that is like living in the now, but as it was for me 29 years ago.

And as I remember that day, it only becomes difficult if I compare to what is going on at this moment.

If I go back to that day and imagine, Oh yes, well, Claire’s going to die in 25 years from now, how horrible. Yes, my memory, my living that experience of that day, gets destroyed, gets upset.

But if I just celebrate that day for being in that day, everything that it brought me, all the wondrous feelings and emotions, it’s beautiful.

And that’s what I challenge you to do.

If your wedding anniversary is coming up, remember that day, that beautiful wondrous day and celebrate that day in the context of that day with all the emotions in that day.

And then you may decide to come back to now and experience a completely different world to the one you thought, but when you celebrate your wedding anniversary, truly celebrate it without connecting it to your past or future.

And this is the power of now.

Advice for grief

Advice for grief

I’m absolutely blown away by this. I asked a simple question on twitter:

“If you were to give a single piece of advice to a new griever on their journey, what would it be?”

I have been absolutely inundated with replies… Yes, inundated! So much fabulous advice about how to cope with the death of someone you love, coming from people who have been there!

Read these replies, and use them in any way you can…

How to deal with the pain of a loved one dying

How to deal with the pain of a loved one dying

Sometimes these things just come to me, this was one of those times, so I created a video…

Transcript

I just want to share a little technique that I use for dealing with the pain of grief and loss and I view it like a fire and the fire is there. And sometimes the fire may be raging hot, I know really painful if we get too close. And sometimes the fire may die down and just be some simmering embers.

And sometimes we may sit in the fire and get too close and get absolutely burnt and scalded by the pain of grief. But the important thing is that we face the fire, and that we face the pain and the hurt of the loss. Because when we face it, we can see what that fire is doing.

And if that fire of pain rages up, we can draw a bit further away and say it’s too close. I’m too close. It’s too painful at the moment, but I can still see it there.

And when the flames died down, we can draw closer and we can say, “well I might actually might like to look a bit more in detail of this.” But if we choose to turn the other way, and face the opposite direction to the fire and the fire is behind us, that fire can be doing anything it can be starting to rage. And the first thing we know is that when we start to burn, our back is burning and so we turn around and we say “no fire, get down, get down, get down”, and then we turn the other way again.

But whilst we turn the other way, the fire flares up again and starts to burn and we turn back and “Get down Get down”, and we are never doing what we need to be doing to deal with the fire and the flames and the pain. So just turn towards it. We can draw closer. If it’s too painful we can move further away.

We can decide to inspect the embers.

We can decide to move back and say let the flames rage. But we face the fire. We face the pain all of the time.

Let me know in the comments what you think.

Book about grief

Book about grief

What an incredibly strange couple of weeks it’s been. I’m writing this as we come out of the Covid-19 lockdown, it’s been a time of social isolation and not much paid work so it’s been an opportunity to work on other projects, of which I have many, you know me!

One of those projects has been my book. I just checked back in my notes and I originally planned to publish it in 2017, I’m only running 3 years late…

After a couple of conversations with other self published authors I decided to self publish on Ingramspark, in hindsight it’s actually a fairly simple process but trying to learn that processes has been rather challenging.

As of 26th of June 2020 the book is now available for pre-order on Amazon in Kindle format and I have my first physical proof of the paperback on its way from the printers.

I’m filled with emotion about the publishing of this. On the one hand I’m exceptionally excited to be able to help so many other people, if just one person reads the book and is helped, then it will be worthwhile.

On the other hand, I’m so desperately sad that I’ve had this experience in the first place.

2 completely different emotions, held side-by-side, hand-in-hand and with no conflict.

And isn’t that a lesson to learn?

  • Yes, the whole experience of Claire dying has been a living, waking hell.
  • Yes, I would never choose to go through it.
  • Yes, I miss her desperately.

And yet…

  • I’ve spent so much time on rebuilding my life that I’m loving it, enjoying it to the full and have few regrets.
  • I would never choose to go through it, and I know that is now part of who I am, and my experiences have been integrated into the new me, and I like the new me.
  • It’s possible to still miss Claire desperately, and that the same time, love again without compromising ‘then’ or ‘now’.

2 completely different emotions, held side-by-side, hand-in-hand and with no conflict.

There’s always a lesson to be learned from every situation, sometimes we just need to dig in order to find it…