Since I have to renew this blog every day, sometimes I renew the title by reusing something from the news.
That photo from the Boston Globe might renew your memory of this photo from two days ago:
Life is renewed every day, and today I’m renewing
my hair with a visit to Mialisa salon,
my travel plans to Nashville, by talking with my friend Jenn in South Carolina,
my courage about traveling someplace I’ve never been before,
my hope that I’ll be able to connect with amazing blogger Christopher Waldrop while I’m there, and
my original song “Everybody’s Somebody’s Asshole,” to make it appropriate for family-friendly Open Mics in Nashville.
Life is renewed whenever I commit to being in the moment, so let’s renew by reviewing these moments together:
Life is renewed when we help another person, take a nap, and listen to music, like this renewal of Bach’s 2 Part Invention in D Minor by Gordon Goodwin’s Big Phat Band:
Life is renewed whenever you authentically express your feelings and thoughts, so consider leaving a comment below.
Life is renewed by gratitude, so thanks to all who help me renew my life by blogging every day, including YOU.
That last photo shows a question I asked my Coping and Healing group yesterday, after making sure I wasn’t missing other important issues. What’s missing for many women are a sense of self esteem and self worth, so some members of the group had trouble answering that question. Other group members helped provide the missing answers.
Closure is challenging, because it brings up old closures, which often relate to losses.
I like to use the term “ending the chapter”, when I talk to people about closure. Somebody, in my office, recently said that in their culture, they use the term “putting the period on the end of the sentence.” I like that, too.
Here’s what I’ve written, so far, about closure in my final letter from the President:
As I’ve thought about writing this, my final letter to you as President of NSGP, naturally my mind has gone to thoughts of closure. (Personally, I don’t like the word “termination”, because that sounds SO final.) As I have learned from my trainings at NSGP (and as I often tell people in my “Coping and Healing” drop-in groups) a good-enough sense of closure is critical in transitions — allowing us to appreciate what we’ve shared together and to move ahead better equipped for future challenges.
In my groups, we often discuss the insufficient and disappointing closures with family members, friends, work situations, organizations, and other important aspects of our life, and how this lack of satisfying closure in important transitions can keep us stuck. During these challenging days, when we might be feeling uncomfortably stuck, closure is especially important.
So what helps with closure? Saying what feels left unsaid.
Naming what you got.
Naming what you didn’t get.
Discarding what is not serving you well.
Later today, I will facilitate a “Coping and Healing” group on a telehealth platform (which I sometimes call “The Home Version of Coping and Healing”). At the end of the group, the participants will hear me, as usual, acknowledge the importance of getting closure in the “wrap up” section of the group. I will introduce wrap-up by explaining, again, what helps with closure. I will invite discarding “what is not serving you well” by showing this to the group:
That’s the magic waste paper basket, an important part of my Coping and Healing groups. If you throw something away in the magic waste paper basket, it will either go away or come back less powerful. Here’s an incomplete list of what people have thrown away in the magic waste paper basket:
Five hundred and sixty-three days and posts ago (but who’s counting during these strange times?), I created and published a post with the same title as today’s.
Today’s post COULD be titled Day 2659: Stay Wicked Fah Apart.
It could be also titled
Day 2659: Social Distancing is Working
Day 2659: When will things return to normal and what will that look like?
Day 2659: With daffodils and magnolia trees in full bloom
Day 2659: The rites of spring
Day 2659: Clouded
Day 2659: A hard truth
Day 2659: No one really knows
Day 2659: Let’s keep playing!
Day 2659: Let’s Go!
Day 2659: SLOW
Day 2659: Caution
Day 2659: Sheer Compassion
Looking at all the photos I took yesterday, you might have your own ideas about what the title of today’s post could be.
Here is music for one of the suggested titles, above.
The title of today’s post, of course, could also be Day 2659: Thanks!
The Year(s) of Living Non-Judgmentally 