Step 4 – You Are Not This Old Story, Is It Time To Create A New One?
List Of Action Steps - Click To View Each One
The Decision Point
Why I Created My New Story
How To Create Your New Story
Sign Up To Get Help Creating Your New Story
Linda M Hughes,
Personal Coach
Step Four – You Are NOT This Old Story – It’s Time To Write A New One!
As you start to get used to carrying around the weight of the loss of your Loved One, you realize that your “life before loss” will never return. You can’t go back, but you also can’t go forward… with those old plans and dreams.
Totally crushed by this realization, I came face to face with what I call my Decision Point.
I felt like I had 3 choices:
- stop the clock, forever tapping replay on every memory of my life up to that point of loss
- give up, give in & fade away, letting the clock simply run out until I too am gone
- or, I could get a new improved clock, honoring my Loved Ones by rebuilding my life, & dreaming new dreams.
I Decided To Rebuild My Inner Life.
My decision point arrived at about one year into grieving my husband for a year and my son for 4. While taking a life coaching class, an instructor posed this statement to our class, "You are NOT your story?" For days, I was so bothered by that statement, it was shaking things loose in the back of my mind. "Are you your story?" "Well, of course I am", I thought to myself. Who else could I be? And if this were not true, then who was I... or more importantly, who could I be, or become? This moved to the front of my mind and a week or so later I had a EUREKA type moment.
The Eureka moment was when I realized that I was NOT my current story,. I realized that this right here was the first step in starting over . It was also from a great place of strength and power. Using myself as an example, I am more than the mother, wife, daughter of my 3 deceased loved ones. I was still and am a living, vibrant contributor to the world at large AND to myself in particular. And the next step in rebuilding my inner life was to remember this! I needed to close this chapter and write a new one. And for the 1st time in my life, I cried for ME. I cried for that lovely person I had been as a mother, wife and daughter. I cried for the very loss of my own self as I had cried for those that I had lost. And as my tears dried, I laughed deep belly laughs in anticipation of taking all the great parts of old me into a chapter of the new me. And I know my 3 loved ones were cheering me on from the other side!
Return To List Of Action Steps
I Created A Way To Do It For Myself - And It Worked!
Now I Want To Share It With You.
Let's Start Here:
In great excitement, I wrote out a plan and instructions for myself, finetuning it as I experimented. Later on it became Step 4 of my signature workshops in "Rebuilding Your Inner Life After Loss". It is Step 4 NOT Step 1, because I wouldn't have been ready for this immediately after their losses. If you find that you ARE ready, don't worry about the number, just jump in with full energy and anticipation and get started!
In the first few years, I told the story of my loss over and over and over again.
At first, I had to tell:
- their loved ones, friends & business associates,
- those involved in their legal, financial and business lives.
Then I told it to myself as a way to:
- remember them out loud,
- remind myself that they had not been a figment of my imagination.
Then, I told the story:
- to hide behind it,
- to use it as a crutch,
- then to shield me from life in general.
Now, I Share Bits Of Our Story, to Show You How To Take This 4th Step
In Rebuilding Your Inner Life After The Loss Of Your Loved One.
In Step 4, I will Guide You Through A Creative Process To:
Separate & safely store memories of your Loved One from the old story
and with calm reflection and gratitude,
...release the old story,
...firmly closing that chapter!
Then I will help you brainstorm and design your new story!
You & I will meet online only, for 1 hour session/week for 5 weeks:
Each week, I will encourage you to keep going, even when it gets hard,
And in that final week, we will finetune & celebrate the beginning of your new story!
Week 1, we will explore:
...the lowest, of the low point in your life to date (NOT to include your current chapter)
...for homework you will journal answers to a series of questions about this low point
...and then there will be time for you to share what is on your mind.
Special Note: Don't let the word "journaling" scare you. It can be done with
a pen/notebook, or spoken/recorded on a smart phone, or doodled on a notepad, or marked up on a
whiteboard, or captured with a camera or through the notes on a guitar.
Use Your best way to share your thoughts with me.
Week 2, we will explore:
...the most amazing, fabulous chapter in your life so far
...for homework, you will journal answers to a series of questions about this amazing time
...and then there will be time for you to share what is on your mind.
Week 3, we will review homework from the last 2 weeks
...from your answers to questions posed,
we will select the foundational building blocks of your next chapter
...and of course there will be time for you to continue sharing your thoughts!
Week 4, we will talk about:
...an unexpected challenge to your ability to write this new chapter
...we will also talk about what will slow
you down from writing your new story
...and ways to navigate through these or to eliminate them altogether.
Week 5, we celebrate!
...we will talk about additional building blocks
...discuss the danger of minimizing your efforts
...and review and plan for how you are going to
recognize AND celebrate your successes!
We will close by coming up with Your accountability plan!
The sky is the limit and you are the creator!
The beauty of your story is that it can be changed, adjusted, or finetuned as you create it.
AKA for all you perfectionists: It is a work in progress, even when you get done & are living it!
There Is Only One Thing Left To Do!
Sign Up For A FREE 1 Hour Group Session
With Me & No More Than 4 Others!
You can introduce yourself, share a little bit of your story and ask your questions!
Then, I will talk about the 3 different pricing plans available, these are:
1. Private, one on one time with me,
2. Or to allow for co-creation time with up to 3 other family members,
3. Or to enroll in a self-directed course, with check-in times as needed.
Time To Sign Up In The Form Below!
I know, I know, it's one of those impersonal booking calendar, but wait... don't leave, let me explain!
I really DO want to meet with you! But neither of us have time to go back and forth for a couple of days trying to figure out which days/times work. Instead, I want to spend our valuable time together designing and creating your next Story!
So, please use the booking calendar!❤️
When it's time for our zoom session, make sure you have your favorite beverage for the time of day, a snack and to get as comfortable as possible. This will not be a high pressure session, it will be me helping you to get relief. You have been carrying a heavy load, let me take that weight off your shoulders for just a bit.
I look forward to meeting with you soon!
Sincerely, Linda Marie