Dear family, friends and (ex)colleagues/acquaintances, I am sorry if you asked me how I was doing and I lied to you saying that “I was ok”. I am sorry if you wanted more time with me but I just simply couldn’t make it. I am sorry if you asked me “what would you like to do now?” and instead of answering “I don’t know” I came up with no clear answers and left you feeling a little lost. I am…
Growth after baby loss means moving from the shock of confronting the destruction of our beliefs/dreams/hopes. Recognizing that it is important to give a serious thought about how we want to continue living life to start building a new system of understanding that can help us integrate and survive this trauma and the ones to come in the future. Reflecting and working towards post-traumatic growth is possible and I am here to support you in that process. Would you like…
So please, go ahead, close your eyes and think of your beautiful baby! Allow yourself some space and time to remember, honor, and to connect with him/her/them. Are you being brave by doing this? No, you are just being a parent to your beautiful child who now lives in your heart. Our babies will be always part of our lives whether they are here or not ♥ Love, Yolanda
Finding ways to replace them with constructive actions We don’t often talk about death until our own world breaks apart with the loss of someone we love. There seems to be an unwritten rule in our society that says that speaking openly about death and grief is not ok, that it is better to avoid the topic. Grief is mostly seen as a negative thing. Most of us internalize that message and when it happens to us, we tend to…
Post-Traumatic Growth: Turning trauma into strength. Traumatic events leave us with full and overwhelmed minds. We cannot stop thinking about what happened, we keep having flashbacks, we can’t stop scrolling on our phones trying to find helpful information and reading similar stories. Our brains are working overtime and that is truly exhausting. If we want to move forward without sinking, it is crucial to take a little bit of time each day to quiet our brain to listen to our…
Post-Traumatic Growth: Turning trauma into strength. Feeling all the feels, that sounds nice...but how do you do that? The best way to start is to own your feelings and be willing to feel them all, exactly as they appear. Whenever you feel down, instead of blaming yourself, feeling bad about it or spending all your energy trying to hide it --> embrace it, become aware of it, mention it. For example: Instead of thinking: I feel terrible, I have been…
Post-traumatic stress gets a lot of attention after baby loss but why focus ONLY on the negative? Did you know that there can be growth after a traumatic event? That there are strategies to turn trauma into strength? In Tedeschi’s words: “In the wake of trauma, people become more aware of the futility in life, and that unsettles some while it focuses others. This is the paradox of growth: People become more vulnerable yet stronger.” In the coming days, I…