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Grieving Awake: The Myth of Closure

7/21/2022

Black and white photo of young man in a hoodie staring into the camera. This illustrates the loneliness and pain of grief. Sacred Circle Holistic Healing offers grief and bereavement counseling in Lawrence and Kansas City, KS.

Our culture loves the idea of “closure” when it comes to grief. But would we ever really want closure after experiencing a deep loss, like the loss of someone we love?

Setting Boundaries Doesn't Make You an Asshole

7/15/2022

Young black woman sitting in front of a gate staring into the camera. This represents that sometimes we feel as if we need to protect ourselves. Sacred Circle Holistic Healing offers therapy for codependency for adults in Kansas.

Photo by Alexis Chloe on Unsplash

If I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard someone say that the reason they’re afraid to set boundaries is because they’re afraid of being “mean,” I’d be rich. Our culture, on the one hand, upholds individualism to an extreme, while on the other hand, encourages and normalizes unhealthy codependent relational dynamics. Mixed messages much?

Grieving Awake: Flipping the Script on Grief

7/8/2022

Black and white picture of a white man with curly hair staring into the camera holding a cigarette in his hand. This illustrates how grieving is painful and hard. Sacred Circle Holistic Healing offers online therapy in Kansas for grief and loss.

Photo by taylor hernandez on Unsplash

"Triggers" As Opportunities to Grieve

Last winter, one of our mama bunnies happened to give birth the night of a cold snap. Temperatures plummeted to well below freezing, and despite being housed in the barn, and having worked diligently to pack her nesting box full of hay, all of her eight babies died by morning.

Surviving Difficult Emotions: Be With It, Not In It

7/1/2022

White woman looking into the camera, unsmiling. This represents the reality of difficult emotions. Sacred Circle Holistic Healing helps adults learn to navigate difficult emotions through therapy in Lawrence, Kansas.

Photo by Wouter R on Unsplash

"Be With it, Not In it"

One of the primary reasons people come to therapy is because they aren’t sure how to cope with strong, intense, or painful emotions. And it makes perfect sense that so many people would struggle with this skill set, because culturally we aren’t taught how to relate to and understand our emotions.

Grieving Awake: Embodied Grief, Part Two

6/24/2022

Black and white photo of a young man looking into the camera with a subtle sadness. This illustrates what grief feels like in the body. Sacred Circle Holistic Healing offers online grief counseling in Kansas for adults.

Photo by Cherry Laithang on Unsplash

This is the continuation of the original blog, Grieving Awake: Embodied Grief, Part 1

Turning Toward Grief

What does it look like to drop into our grief? What does it look like to allow ourselves to grieve in a fully embodied way?

Grieving Awake: Embodied Grief, Part 1

6/18/2022

Black and white portrait of a young woman looking down, off camera, not smiling. This symbolizes that Sacred Circle Holistic Healing offers online grief and bereavement counseling in Kansas.

Photo by Tuva Mathilde Løland on Unsplash

My Fear of Grief

I had no idea when I was preparing for the birth of my first child that the skills I was learning were the same skills I would draw on a mere 18 months later in order to midwife myself through my grief following her death.

Self-Compassion: Six Ways to Practice Showing Up For Yourself

6/10/2022

Close up portrait of a young man with red hair and red goatie, smiling at the camera. This represents that Sacred Circle Holistic Healing offers online therapy in Kansas, helping people develop self-compassion and healing past trauma.

Photo by Matias de la Fuente on Unsplash

Self-Compassion Helped Me Survive

It was during my daughter’s cancer treatment that I had a lot of practice being there for myself. We stayed in the hospital for seven months, and everyday I lived in terror that she might not make it. My number one priority was to be there for her, but in order to do that, I had to function alongside many intense and overwhelming emotions.

Grieving Awake: When There Are No Words

6/3/2022

Photo by Rachel McDermott on Unsplash

Sometimes, in grief, there are no words to describe what we have experienced or the depth of the pain that we feel. There are just no words. I often find myself in this place, and it can be really lonely. I want to tell people how much I miss my daughter, how I’d give anything to hold her again, to go back in time to before she got sick. I want to say these things, but often I just can’t. It feels like too much and not enough, all at the same time.

Why Are Highly Sensitive People Prone to People-Pleasing?

5/27/2022

portrait of a young white woman with a shaved head and blue eyes, staring into the camera. This represents that Sacred Circle Holistic Healing offers individual therapy in Kansas for Highly Sensitive adults.

Photo by Caique Silva on Unsplash

What is a “Highly Sensitive Person” (HSP)? Highly Sensitive Person is a term used to describe 15-20% of the population who are born with a unique sensory processing trait that allows them to notice more subtleties in their environment, resulting in both deeper processing (thinking & feeling) and a tendency toward becoming overwhelmed by stimuli more quickly. If you’re unfamiliar with the concept of high sensitivity you can start here: The Highly Sensitive Person: A Form of Neurodivergence.

Being Highly Sensitive comes with many positives. Highly Sensitive People (HSPs) are known for being conscientious and creative, they tend to pick up on subtleties others miss and have the capacity for deep empathy. But just like anything, being an HSP comes with its own set of challenges to work through. One such challenge is a tendency toward people-pleasing and conflict avoidance.

Grieving Awake: Your Grief is Your Own

5/19/2022

Black and white photo of a wooden dock, broken into pieces. This illustrates how one often feel

Photo by Hoach Le Dinh on Unsplash

Content Warning: death and child loss

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"Triggers" As Opportunities to Grieve

"Be With it, Not In it"

Turning Toward Grief

My Fear of Grief

Self-Compassion Helped Me Survive

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