Open to Hope Articles
Do you want to read stories of others who have been where you are? Are you looking for bereavement help, and advice? Look no further. We offer over 3,000 articles written by our Open to Hope authors.
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Stages of Grief: Real of Not?
December 14, 2020
Excerpt from Life After Loss For Widows: Lifting the Veil of Grief You may have heard there are stages of grief we all go through. If you google it, you might see there are five stages. Another article may say there are seven stages. Still others say there are really no stages at all. Perhaps grief consists of emotions in no particular order and not everyone may experience all of them. Although I am no doctor, and I don’t even play one on TV, I choose to believe the latter. In fact, science is acknowledging that more today than they […]
5 Reasons to Still Celebrate This Holiday Season Even Though You’re Grieving
December 13, 2020
Sometimes after losing our spouse, it is difficult to find things to be happy about. In the early stages of our grief, finding anything good in our life requires coming out of the dark protective cocoon we have built around ourselves and looking for something other than sadness. We just don’t want to do that yet. With the holidays upon us and beside the spiritual aspect of the season, let us look at five reasons we should still celebrate, despite the grief we are experiencing. You had love in your life. The reason your grief is so painful is because […]
Navigating 5 Life Changes: Reflections on the Journey
December 8, 2020
This is an excerpt from Navigating 5 Life Changes: An Odyssey of Resiliency and Hope, which is available at: https://www.creativecoachingmethods.com/ “We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time” — T.S. Eliot Imagine coming back from a long trip and looking around and really seeing what surrounds us – the furniture in our home, the books on the table, the art on the walls, the china in the kitchen. Outside, flowers are starting to burst through the soil, there are buds […]
Navigating 5 Life Changes: Coming Home
December 6, 2020
This is an excerpt from Navigating 5 Life Changes: An Odyssey of Resiliency and Hope, available at: https://www.creativecoachingmethods.com/ “The world is round and the place which may seem like the end may also be only the beginning.” — Ivy Baker Priest I can see it now – a tiny spec on the horizon. I point my compass to my true north and with the wind in my sails, I chart my course and head home. As the land mass gets bigger, I have a new understanding of what “home” means to me. So with solid footing, I step ashore and […]
Navigating 5 Life Changes: Adrift at Sea
December 4, 2020
This is an excerpt from Navigating 5 Life Changes: An Odyssey of Resiliency and Hope, available at: https://www.creativecoachingmethods.com/ “We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.” — Joseph Campbell The year of yearning, learning and finding my way again began on September 11, 2011, the day my son and I drove in two cars from Western New York to Western Massachusetts, fourteen months after my husband’s death. The first year after losing my husband is all a foggy haze – I yearned for my “old […]
Navigating 5 Life Changes: A Major Loss
December 1, 2020
This is an excerpt from Navigating 5 Life Changes: An Odyssey of Resiliency and Hope, which is available at: https://www.creativecoachingmethods.com/ “What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson My life changed course on a sunny Saturday afternoon in May 2010. I was spending the day with my cousin visiting from Greece and had spoken to my husband on the phone mid-afternoon about dinner plans that evening. When I walked in the door, a little before 6:00, I called out his name, “I’m home, hon” – no […]
Navigating 5 Life Changes: Love, Loss and Renewal
November 28, 2020
This is an excerpt from Navigating 5 Life Changes: An Odyssey of Resiliency and Hope, which is available on my website: https://www.creativecoachingmethods.com/ When we hear the word odyssey what images come to mind? A trip to a faraway place, a search for something, being gone for an extended period of time, a wandering as the Greek warrior Odysseus? (By definition an odyssey is oftentimes a long, excruciating and exhilarating journey, any extended wandering.) The odyssey metaphor seems like the perfect one for me because I felt I was “away” for a long time. The sudden death of my husband was […]
Navigating 5 Life Changes: An Odyssey of Resiliency and Hope
November 25, 2020
This is an excerpt from Navigating 5 Life Changes, An Odyssey of Resiliency and Hope, which is available at https://www.creativecoachingmethods.com/ Preface to the Book A major life change has “an effect that is strong enough to change someone’s life.” (Cambridge dictionary). I have experienced five major life changes in a five-year period and all changed my life in ways I could not have imagined. First was the sudden death of my husband; second the selling of our home; third a corporate downsizing; fourth relocating to a new state, and fifth being diagnosed with a major life illness – cancer. These […]
Navigating 5 Life Changes: Overview
November 23, 2020
This is an excerpt from “Navigating 5 Life Changes,” An Odyssey of Resiliency and Hope” which is available on my website: https://www.creativecoachingmethods.com/ All Rights Reserved. First Edition. Copyright 2018 by Mary Lou Meddaugh My Odyssey is an inspirational self-help book in a memoir format. It is a personal story of love, loss and renewal through five major life changes and culminates in my coming home to the person I feel I am meant to be – my authentic self. My journey originates with the sudden loss of the love of my life, my husband. Over a period spanning 5 years, […]
