Unsolicited Advice - Grief

The Japanese mother of two teenage daughters that she lost to drowning in our lake took to wearing her daughter's clothing.

My friend in her grief after her Dad's passing ingested a bottle of medication prescribed for the old man. 

I took to smoking my Mom's cigarettes, even though I had given up rolling cigarettes with Drum tobacco in my teens after a humiliating introduction to asanas, an aspect of yoga. 

I took to drinking my Mom's coffee, even though I had given up coffee decades ago because I drank too many refills with too much sugar when I lived in New York City on very little income in my twenties. 

I took to playing Patience with my Mom's cards after her unexpected passing, just like she did, with coffee near, cigarette in one hand, pen stuck behind one ear, crossword puzzle near, while I was in the process of having to dissolve my parent's household. I neglected to collect my Mom's set of old, funky cards and ended up having to buy a new set with which I played my own version of Solitaire for hours in to the early mornings - for several years.

I kept odd items of their remains, such as my Mom's ugly coffee can, even though I only started to drink coffee regularly years later after my Dad's passing.

I kept their antique, oriental, deep red carpets, even though they were cumbersome to transport and I hate to vacuum ever since I had to as a child. I kept them despite the color red not fitting in my home. I prefer the color purple. 

I kept my Mom's festive green Irish coffee set used only on high holidays, even though I am not a fan of green anything. The set never fails to remind me of my childhood, of memories more the half a century ago.

I kept my Mom's dad silver soup spoon engraved with the family name. I love it and use it daily. Maybe the only object that reminds me of my lineage from my Mom's side.

I kept a few of my Mom's flannel night gowns, even though I tend to sleep naked and consider them ugly. They were cozy, soft and warm I rediscovered, I wore them and still keep what is left for cleaning my home.

My unsolicited advice: Follow your heart - with a sense of discernment. Grief as you must, but be gentle with yourself.

Unsolicited Advice #8 - Bluff

More unsolicited advice 

to those still green behind their ears:

Beware! 

The elder you might be talking with

may be bluffing!

SHe may not have the foggiest notion

about who you are! 

Alzheimer's, Dementia, Senior Moments,

they are all too real.

As things are looking now

you too may be affected, eventually.

So, stay kind,

cultivate patience,

fall back on laughter,

but keep it real.

Tattered around the edges

no longer fresh and young,

but not yet ready to fall off

- the face of the earth.

About how I feel.

Advice for Women Who Run With Wolves

The advise from Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Ph.D.
out of her book Women Who Run With the Wolves
reads as follow:

1.  Eat

2.  Rest

3.  Rove in between

4.  Render loyalty

5.  Love the children

6.  Cavil in moonlight

7.  Tune your ears

8.  Attend to the bones

9.  Make love

10. Howl often

Unsolicited Advice #7

One can be only as honest with others as one is with self.

When a person cannot deceive himself the chances are against his being able to deceive other people.

Mark Twain 
When she cannot deceive herself 
the chances are against her being deceived by others.

Deception of self and others is rampant. Many a woman has tales to share. In the news only today one woman claims to have discovered, on facebook, the marriage of her husband to another woman! Lies can pass through lips of the most sincere and sweet looking faces. A sociopath perfects suggesting to you what he thinks you want to hear. Of course such disturbed individuals could be male or female, but here I am concerned with the woman that gets taken by her man, her lover, her husband, and sometimes a total stranger.

Gullibility because of feeling needy, chasing a dream, or seeking a way out from an impossible situation is not helpful, but neither does it condemn the victim of a ruse.

I remember my Dad's warning to me, then a teen. I hated his trying to impress on me that the world is not a safe place and people can not be trusted. I hate to give this same impression now. The antidote is to learn to trust your instincts, go through the world with eyes wide open and to not wear blinders and rose colored glasses. 

The truth shall set us free!

Unsolicited Advice #6

Learn the difference between a response and a reaction!

Dr. Kaushik

I must credit Dr. Kaushik with alerting me to the difference of a response versus a reaction.
 

It was the seventies, I was still in my teens, Dr. Kaushik had just started to travel the world teaching his insights to those that would listen. I had just moved in to a farm house with a huge attic out in the Swiss, very pretty countryside. Dr. Kaushik came to hold his seminar in our attic. It was all very exciting. An international group of young attractive world travellers came to camp out with this guru, or master from India. My mentor Dwuno placed Dr. Kaushik's teaching to a similar level of enlightenment as Krishnamurti's, a very high endorsement. So happily I sat at this man's feet along with everyone else and listened. I was young and in serious trouble with my parents. Eventually I got up the courage to ask about my situation at home. His answer: "Don't react!"

An automatic reaction is a far cry from a measured response. Mature, responsible human beings nurture the ability to respond, rather then react! I will always feel gratitude for Dr. Kaushik's teachings.

Unsolicited Advice #5

Learn the difference between feeling your feelings and acting them out. A sure sign of acting out is being overly concerned with the other rather then yourself. Manage your experience rather then another's! Make I-statements rather then blame as in: "You did", "-made me feel ...."

Releasing pent-up energy through acting out is very tempting and seems so real when in truth it is a means of avoiding your feelings and manipulating another's. Remember to bring it all back to yourself, your experience and your choices, rather then reactions.

Unsolicited Advice #4

My unsolicited advice from one, 
maybe a bit more experienced woman to another:

Feel Your Feelings!

Expression is negotiable - Repression is not.

Unsolicited Advice #3

Love! Not that I exactly feel qualified to talk, much less advise about love, but I wish someone had told me when I was still in the process of becoming a woman that love does not just happen. We make ourselves vulnerable and available for love of a certain kind for a reason. Those reasons, or motivations, better be good. Love does not have to be a coup de foudre, a follie a deux, a singular or shared state of insanity. Love happens, usually for a reason. It behooves us to inquire, to wonder and to tread cautiously. We are magical, multi-faceted, wondrous beings. It is a good idea to bring our various facets in to play with another, rather then present one aspect alone. It is good to take our sweet time in getting to know another and through it ourselves.

Nothing compares to the sweet sense of overflowing goodwill towards the focus of our affection. Nurtured along properly the positive flow may continue rather then flip in to a malignant, maybe disappointed, destructive, powerful negative torrent. Love rejected can turn in to hate all too easily.

Do not allow the festering of hate, do not close your heart. It is our life long challenge to keep an open and soft heart, no matter what.

Unsolicited Advice #2

Trust has to be earned!

I had the very good fortune of having come upon a wise and wonderful woman who taught me many things, one of them that trust is not to be given freely, but needs to be earned. As a girl, not yet a woman, this was a revelation to me. I guess I had an idea that somehow we intuit if someone is worthy of our trust or not. And we do, but not just. Remember the saying "trust in god, but bind your camel?" I say trust in your intuition, but put it to test too.

There are many reasons why good people become untrustworthy. Addiction comes up as maybe the number one reason. Chemical imbalances can wreck havoc. A less then ideal upbringing, or the choice of bad company can easily lead one astray as well. So I say don't be a fool, test the recipients of your trust and affection!

Unsolicited Advice #1

Learn to say NO! You can not say yes, if you can not say no. Learn to say no. Say it nicely, but firmly. No need to be rude. I say this from one woman to another, maybe less experienced woman or girl.

In the news a french woman just confessed to having killed 6 new born babies of hers. You bet this woman did not know how to say no. We do not know if she could not refuse her husband, or maybe the Pope, who still insists that sex with protection is wrong. But we do know that since the woman could not say no, she denied life to her offspring. In the same way when we can not say no, we deny an aspect of ourself, we kill an aspect of ourself, and eventually grow in to a farce of our self, an idea of self with little resemblance to who we really are.

Society teaches us, especially us women, to be pleasing. Naturally being more empathic then men, we women tend to give up ourselves in favor of the other. Have we not heard of oral sex given by teenage girls - in hopes of, yes, love. We older women shake our heads, what happened to women's lib? This is not what women had in mind then. This is most certainly not how to win a man's heart. (Not that with all my experience I really would know how.)

In order to say no and mean it, we have to know who we are and what we want. This knowing of oneself takes time to develop. There is no need to rush, not even in this culture of instant gratification. Remember you can say yes fully only after you have learned to say no!