Almost two weeks ago I shared with you my experiences around living through my recent losses.

The grieving process is ongoing, and sadness keeps coming back in the most unexpected and awkward moments. However, overall I’m feeling much better and have moved deeper into the stage of integration. This also allows me to reflect and spend some time pondering on the last few months.

As with most things in my life so far, even this sad chain of losses has presented me with some unique and valuable gifts. Let me tell you what I mean with that:

Gratitude:

• For being alive and healthy. Yep, loosing a dear friend to cancer has sure cracked me open to a deeper level of appreciation for being alive and in such good health

• For having a better rational understanding (through the course I took around “Loss & Grief”) and now also a deeply ingrained personal experience of what it means to grieve

• For all the lessons learnt

Humility:

• In that recent chain of events I came to a point where I couldn’t do anything but surrender to my emotions, my being-out-of-control and my learning. I felt humble – in a beautifully human way

Connection:

• Sharing my grief and feelings with other people helped me connect with them on a deeper level and feel real and alive

Compassion:

• Having been in that sad place where I felt very raw, vulnerable, helpless and deflated, I now can relate much better to other people’s pains and feel greater compassion toward them and myself

Perspective:

• Life will always go on. As hard as the recent blows were for me, yet again this experience has shown me that life always goes on. Somehow I always make it through tough phases, I learn to deal with them, possibly make sense of and learn from them.

These losses are new experiences to add to my book of life. They left me bereft in some areas, enriched in others and certainly very happy to be alive.

What did you learn from the losses in your life? What were the gifts you received?

Have you ever experienced a loss and wondered when you would finally feel better and remotely normal again? Were you so sad that you had a hard time putting a trace of a smile on your face? And did you end up saying or doing things that did not make sense?

Lately, I have been going through a series of significant losses – three of them in the past three months. I feel I’ve had my fair share.

Loss is defined as “an intentional or unintentional parting with someone or a something of value”. As soon as a person can develop an attachment to a person or a “thing” (circumstance, life condition etc.), s/he can experience loss and grief.

We all go through quite a number of losses throughout our lives. They come in all different sizes, shapes, and forms, e.g. losses caused by death, separation, retirement, or the move to another city or country; loss of health and/or mobility; being left as empty nesters, etc. etc. – the list is endless.

My personal experience of grieving and readjustment to the changed circumstances in my life is a challenge and a huge lesson for me. I find myself to be less energetic and harder to motivate. Keeping my business and myself up and running at a bare bones level is all I’ve been able to manage. Not much energy left for anything else. Also, I seem to do strange things, e.g. I stand in the wrong street waiting for my bus to come, I make comments that are out of context, inappropriate or simply stupid, and I’m having a hard time with making plans and setting intentions for the year ahead. Is this normal? Luckily, it is! Want to know why? Keep reading…

This past fall, in the middle of my various losses, I attended a course for professionals around “Loss & Grief” (an excellent course offered by the “Living through Loss Counselling Society”). And there I learnt that the cerebral cortex – the wavy and curly part of our brain – functions at a much lower level in situations of loss and grief than it normally would. Some of the functions of the cerebral cortex are appropriate communication, short-term memory, assessing one’s actions and their impact on others, as well as goal setting and planning for the future. Knowing this, my recent experiences actually make sense to me and I feel much more normal in this phase that otherwise has an uprooted and abnormal flavour to it.

The grieving process has its own dynamics, and for every person the experience is different. There are no rules as to the sequence of stages a person should go through and how soon we should be done with our grieving and mourning. Personally, I know that I’m not done with my grief. And, I now also know that the way I feel and the unusual things I experience are actually to be expected for someone in a situation of loss – and just knowing that makes me feel so much better.

Can you relate to any of the above? What are your experiences around loss and grief?  I’d love to hear about them.

Next week, I’ll be sharing my experience with “The Hidden Gifts of Loss”. Yes, as contradictory as it may sound, there can actually be gifts hidden in the experience of loss. Come back if that interests you, and have a great week until then!

Meine Mutter

Meine Mutter hieß Hilde und sie war eine besondere Frau in meinem Leben. Zu ihren Lebzeiten habe ich sie leider nicht in der ihr gebührenden Weise geehrt. Von daher benutze ich nun die Einführung meiner Webseite als eine Art und Weise, verpaßte Gelegenheiten wiedergutzumachen und ich widme ihr meine Webseite ClearDirections.ca. Mama, die hier ist für dich!

Jetzt wo ich als weibliche Unternehmerin in die Welt trete, entdecke ich mehr und mehr, wie sehr der Einfluss meiner Mutter und ihr Beispiel dazu beigetragen haben, mich zu der Person zu machen, die ich heute bin.

Meine Mutter war ein Vorbild für mich, die mich an wichtige Werte und aktuelle Fähigkeiten meines Lebens herangeführt hat: Ehrlichkeit, Mitgefühl, die Bereitschaft anderen zu Diensten zu sein, Freude, Dankbarkeit, Vertrauen in das Gute in Menschen und die Welt im allgemeinen, Respekt, aktives Zuhören, Kreativität, Musikalität und vor allen Dingen Liebe.

Wir hatten immer ein Haus der offenen Türe, was bedeutete, dass ich meine Freunde zu fast jeder Tageszeit mit nach hause bringen konnte. Und ich konnte darauf bauen, dass meine Mutter uns willkommen heißen und in ihrer gewöhnlichen warmen, großzügigen und endlos gebenden Art bewirten würde.

Wenn ich mit ihr über Konflikte mit meinen Freunden oder anderen Menschen in meinem Leben sprach, bot sie mir immer eine Perspektive an, die größere Akzeptanz anderen gegenüber zuließ und die Situation zumeist zu deren Gunsten deutete. Als Heranwachsende war das war nicht immer leicht zu verstehen, aber im Nachhinein betrachtet hat es mir geholfen, größeres Mitgefühl für andere – und mich selber – zu entwickeln.

Ich wußte immer, dass ich auf die Unterstützung meiner Mutter und ihren  standhaften Glauben an mein Leistungsvermögen bauen konnte. Hätte ich nur einen Teil ihres Vertrauens in mich besessen, so wäre ich mittlerweile eine zweite Sarah McLachlan oder Oprah.

Natürlich, wie vermutlich bei allen Eltern, gab es bei Aspekte, die ich in meiner Mutter beobachtet habe, die ich bewußt nicht übernommen habe. Danke, Mama, dass du mir einen Kontrastpunkt geboten hast.

In ihren letzten Jahren schien meine Mutter ein neues Verständnis und eine höhere Wertschätzung für die Kraft zu gewinnen, die in Selbstanerkennung und Selbstliebe verborgen liegt. Sie begann das Potential für reichere zwischenmenschliche Erfahrungen zu sehen, die in einer unerschütterlichen Gleichheit von Mann und Frau wurzelt. Leider war ich ihr zu der Zeit nicht nahe genug, um Anteil an diesem Wandel in ihrer Auffassung zu nehmen. Ich lebte damals zum ersten Mal in Vancouver und war sehr in mir selbst und meinem eigenen Leben verfangen, und bemerkte daher die Änderungen, die in ihr vorgingen, nicht. Bis zum heutigen Tage macht es mich ziemlich traurig, dass wir nie eine Gelegenheit hatten, mehr darüber zu sprechen und gemeinsam zu erkunden und miteinander zu teilen, wie die praktische Umsetzung ihrer neuen Erkenntnis in unserem Leben hätte aussehen können.

In dem Wissen, dass meine Mutter sich der Möglichkeit geöffnet hatte, eine Frau in einem erweiterten und möglicherweise gesünderen Sinne zu sein, glaube ich, dass sie sich darüber freuen würde zu sehen, dass ich meiner Berufung folge, dass ich das mache, was mir Freude bereitet und mich so authentisch und freudig wie nur möglich in allen Lebensbereichen ausdrücke.

Durch ihr Geschenk der Liebe und das Beispiel ihres Lebens hat meine Mutter soviel zur Entwicklung meiner jetzigen Person und der Person, die ich im Begriff bin zu werden, beigetragen – und dafür bin ich sehr dankbar. Möge meine Firma „Clear Directions“ ein angemessener Ausdruck der Vorstellung sein, die wir beide vor Augen hatten, und möge sie anderen Menschen gute Dienste leisten!

Monika Becker - Owner

Welcome to Clear Directions – Consulting and Life Coaching!

Please click here to read my blog posts in English and German, or use the categories on the sidebar to choose by language. I hope you enjoy them!

And if you are new to my website please allow me to introduce Clear Directions to you in more detail.

My goal is to support you in clarifying your direction and expressing your potential in all areas of life.

Through thought-provoking conversations and creative processes I support you to “Know Your Path – Realize Your Vision” and take focused action toward your dreams and goals. I would be honoured to assist you in living a life of your conscious creation that totally pleases and fulfills you.

This website has been launched just a little while ago, and I am still working on creating an appealing look and lots more interesting content for you.  In this process there may be changes in the appearance of our web pages. My  apologies for any inconvenience this may create for you, and thank you for your patience and understanding!

Take a look at what I have put together so far, and if you have any questions or comments please use the “Contact Monika” page to email me or call me at ++1.604.737.0870.

With the launch of this website I would like to honour a special person in my life, who was instrumental in helping me find my direction in life, my mom. I am dedicating my first blog post and this website to her – so read on if you’d like to get to know her a bit!

I look forward to hearing from you or seeing you here again soon.

Warm regards,

Monika

My Mom

My mom’s name was Hilde and she was a special woman in my life. While she was still alive I didn’t honour her as much as she would have deserved. Therefore, I am using the launch of my first business website as one way of making up for missed opportunities, and I dedicate my website ClearDirections.ca to her. Mom, this one’s for you!

As I’m stepping out into the world as a female entrepreneur I am discovering more and more how much my mom’s influence and example contributed to me being the person I am today.

Clearly, my mom was a role model for me, who introduced me to major values and current skills in my life: Honesty, compassion, an attitude of service, joy, gratitude, trust in the good in people and the world in general, respect, active listening, creativity, musicality, and most importantly, love.

We always had an “open door policy” at home, which meant that I could bring my friends home at almost any time, and I could count on my mom welcoming and feeding us all in her usual warm, generous, and endlessly giving manner.

When I talked to her about conflicts with my friends and other people in my life she used to offer a perspective that allowed for greater acceptance of others, giving them the benefit of the doubt. Not always easy to agree with as an adolescent – however, looking back, it served me in establishing greater compassion for others, and myself.

I always knew that I could count on my Mom’s support and her unwavering belief in my potential and me as a person. Had I only possessed a portion of her belief in me I’d be a second Oprah or Sarah McLachlan by now.

Of course, as probably with most parents, there were aspects that I observed in my mom, which I chose to not adopt. Thank you, Mom, for offering me a point of contrast.

In her late years my mom seemed to gain a new understanding and appreciation for the power inherent in self-appreciation and self-love. She also started to see the potential for richer interpersonal experiences that were rooted in the unshakable equality of men and women. Unfortunately, I wasn’t close enough to her at the time to share this shift in perception with her. I was living here in Vancouver for the first time around and was very much caught up in my own life and I was not being very present to these changes in her. To the day it makes me quite sad that we never had an opportunity to talk more about this and explore and share what it might have looked like in our lives.

Knowing that my mom had opened up to the possibility of being a woman in an enhanced and possibly healthier way, I think she would be quite pleased to see me follow my calling, do what I love doing and express myself as authentically and joyfully as possible in all areas of my life.

Through her gift of love and the example of her life my mom has contributed so much to who I have become and who I’m about to be – and for that I am so very grateful. May “Clear Directions” be an adequate expression of our joint visions and may it be of service to others!