A broken heart hurts as we all know, but a study by Dr Mark Porter shows that if we are not careful then grief can affect our health. In a survey, he found
“When compared with a controlled group of people who hadn’t lost anyone close to them, the bereaved showed significant increases in blood pressure, pulse rate and changes to their immune and clotting systems, which made their blood stickier and a heart attack more likely. The changes were most marked during the first six months after bereavement and have been pounced on by the …read more

When is the right time to move on? A question which I often get asked. The answer is simple….when you are ready and the time is different to everyone.
Love runs deep, it runs through the soul your being. It starts in the heart and flows through your veins in a way which you cannot control. When that source of love gets taken away your body, mind and spirit needs to heal.
However, one thing we all have to remember is there is no right time…it will never feel like the exact time. We have to be brave one day and open …read more

Sometimes it feels as though everything is out of our control, sometimes we feel that life is controlling us…rather than us controlling our life. But you know we can change our life, we can the way people look at us and react to us.

We can pull our shoulders back and our chin up…..we can walk as though we embrace life rather than suffer life.
We can smile at people when we are out and about – you will be amazed how people smile back and how your mood lifts.
We can walk towards life rather than sitting fearing life.
We can make a …read more

Over the last 14 days I have had 6 phone calls to say friends or extended family members have died. 6! It has got to the point that I daren’t pick the phone up…just in case….
Once thing I realised about human nature is that on the first phone call I was very shocked and on each phone call thereafter the shock lessoned. Now please don’t read that as though I don’t care about the later deaths…that is far from the truth, I feel numb, so numb…..but somehow my heart locked itself away from further shock and pain. Somehow death had …read more

I wonder if anyone else feels the same pangs of grief, the mix of love and hate in your feelings. For example
I love the fact we found each other
I hate the fact you were torn away
I love the fact that I got to feel real love
I hate the fact I long for that love again
I love the fact he came into my life
I hate the fact he left my life
I love my life
I hate my life
I love my memories
I hate the pain of memories

Do you know what I mean? But I suppose there is a thin line between love and …read more

After all our ups and downs this week we may all need some motivation for the week ahead. As always on a Sunday here is the carnival of positive thinking

HighGrace presents Your next 30 years — Face to the Sun posted at Face to the Sun.

Akemi presents What I Know About Life And Death posted at Yes to Me.

Relax presents How to Become a Sleeping Winner posted at The Wise Curve, saying, “Get good quality sleep with Progressive Muscle Relaxation, and proper matress + pillows.”

Chris Edgar presents Calling A Truce In The “War Of Words” posted at Purpose Power Coaching, …read more

I received a heart wrenching email yesterday, from a reader who just couldn’t face the world. She finished the email saying that I couldn’t know how she felt…..
That is true, none of us can know how someone else is feeling. However, I believe that hope is much better than despair. Let me tell you a true story.
Her heart was breaking, her grief was overwhelming her. She couldn’t face life without him. She spent a week tidying her house, setting her finances straight, seeing her friends….then went and bought her tablets and her drink which was finally going to make her …read more

Here we are at another Sunday, well done to all of us and getting through another week…but if we are going to move from surviving to thriving, to move past the grief then we need to be motivated to get past the loneliness. Here are this weeks articles to help widows, and widowers

ananga presents How to Use Your Breath to Relax Your Mind posted at Ananga Sivyer’s Living by Design Blog, saying, “If your mind is behaving like a kid in a waiting room and is really having trouble keeping still and quiet, you need to learn to distract it …read more

Yes, if it means not losing our loved ones, but then I wonder what the world would be like…

Wouldn’t it be too perfect if we could turn the clocks back each time we make a mistake or something goes wrong?
Would we lose the human nature of being an imperfect human!
There would be no death….there would be no circle of life….we would just die when the worlds resources could not cope anymore, which would be an even longer, painful death.
Would we be in danger of not growing as people. Isn’t it through the hard times that you learn the most about …read more

There is an ongoing conversation at the blog post Watching Someone Die, which made me think of final acts of love. If any of you have examples let me know – anna@b5media.com, and I will share with everyone. In my comment, I talked about how Dad seemed to wait until after my sister had left the room to die, so he didn’t leave her with the picture of him dying….I believe it was his final act of love for a daughter he knew was not emotionally strong enough to see that final breath.I think there were other acts of love, like..

 Saying he wanted …read more