Tag: life

Random Musings on Grief

On By ellenbessoIn Grief, lifestyle change2 Comments

Like everything in our world, grief is energy. It gives us information. In grief the existence of every emotion is possible.

Grief is missing our Person. It affects us in unimaginable ways… A hole has been created within us…an emotional hole and a loss of identity, the identity that is part of our personhood. This produces the body-brain issues, the change in brain chemistry, hormones, etc.

The lungs are the main organ to hold grief according to my TCM doc, although not exclusively. My lung grief affects my shoulders, in turn affecting my arms and so on. At times it tires me and my shoulders sag. Then I need to rest.

As that area of my body releases more over the months, the shoulder sagging has become rare. The other evening I noticed a bit of sagging after being awake and up for twelve hours, a vast improvement.

Alone after 43 years with my soulmate, I have a fear of disappearing… to myself and to others. Part of me really has ‘disappeared’…my old identity.

I feel vulnerable, there is no one to look out for me. It’s ironic in a way…I’m fearful that I can’t do it, live without Don…even though I have been managing successfully for several years.

Covid has changed people’s perception of time it seems. Somehow the “covid culture” of alienation, combined with my protective body-mind grief dissociation, makes everything seem odder.

We never know how grief is going to show up. Shulman, a neurologist, said after losing her soulmate: “I expected [the planned trip] to Greece to be unbearable sadness, but it wasn’t…It was profound instability…Losing bearings, losing identity, losing your coherent self.”  

The disorientation of deep grief is an altered state where our minds strain to make order out of unfamiliar events, Shulman goes on to say. As the months went on, and my brain rewired itself to a new normal, my mind became much clearer.

I resisted the idea of having a psychic reading with my friend Alma for thirteen months after Don left us, sensing she would tell me something I did not want to hear. I was right. Alma told me Don wanted me to let go of my sadness.

We are well aware that grief doesn’t work that way, we can’t just decide to let go of it.  

The next day as I prepared food in my kitchen, Alma’s words came back to me and I became angry. Alma was the messenger, it was not her I was angry with, it was Don. I remember quite clearly saying “Screw You” to him as I stood at the kitchen sink.

My anger helped shift me forward. Later I explained to him that things worked differently “down here” from the energetic environment that was now his home.

Guilt was an occasional visitor in the early days and still occasionally, but I did not let it take hold of me. “I must have done something wrong for Don to become so ill and die was the thought that crossed my mind. “This is not your fault”, he told me, and I wrote it in red in my journal.” What Don said sunk in deeper at that point in time.

To me the guilt and “if onlies” are just an extension of my magical belief that if we could redo our life we would gain time and would have many more years together.  

When grievers have experienced multiple traumas in their lives as I have, growing a new life is a complicated task sometimes. The negative experiences that were held at bay to a degree during our lives with our soulmates come to the forefront now. Additionally, I believe that my soul is releasing past life experiences as I move forward spiritually.

Excerpted from a work in progress, Working title: Then: When my Life Fell Apart

C Ellen Besso 2025

Who’s in Charge? Lessons from the Universe

On By ellenbessoIn change, detachment from outcome, lifestyle change, Positivity2 Comments

Within the mayhem of our planet my own personal micro chaos has been taking place.

The Universe has conspired to teach me many lessons lately. From a toxic neighbour to two failed real estate deals…it has come home to me in a stronger way that I am not the one running the show.

For two years I have lived next door to a demanding neighbour. Our doors are set in a 90 degree corner from each other. Being a fair and accommodating person, I had not realized how stressful it was living in such close proximity to this woman until, due to a strata issue, my neighbour verbally attacked me.

Although my place has a lovely view, the apartment itself has never been right for me. I had not thought previously of moving but the disturbing “event” with my neighbour propelled me into taking a look at quite a different unit in another part of our complex, one that has more privacy and is more like a small cottage.

My friend Joe became my agent. We rushed to prepare both offer and selling contracts and to get my place ready to go on the market. We were after a quick purchase and rapid sale so no short term mortgage would be needed. “We’re selling the view”, Joe said. (Unfortunately the view of the Gibsons harbour and North Shore mountains was obscured by wildfire smoke that week, but we would make do, using the pics from two years ago when I purchased the property)

Pictures of the inside of my place were taken and our offer made, but the very morning my place was to be listed, the other unit was taken off market. We did not find out why, until later, when we were told that the seller had lost the big old house she wanted farther up the Sunshine Coast.

Now that deal had gone south and she was bidding on the big house again, with her apartment here going back on market.

“Everything’s ready, let’s go for it”, said Joe. But this time he repeatedly cautioned me to keep emotions out of it.

You can probably guess what happened next…There were multiple offers on the big house, and my “seller” lost out on it yet again. I felt for the woman.

“We are being asked to loosen out grip on plans, timelines and outcomes. The Universe is shifting pieces behind the scenes…Stay open, receptive and willing to step into alignment when the door opens.” April Ripley wrote on her facebook page.

I think that should be my new motto, not an easy challenge.

My Lessons: Detachment both with the neighbour and to the outcome of buying the new place. Strong boundaries with the neighbour…I’ve been too fair and too nice for too long.

The whole thing was too rushed, but there were reasons for this exercise relating to letting go of outcome. Each time we moved farther ahead in terms of readiness to move.

Hopefully it will happen next year. Now I wait…and I purge my home!

Solo Travelling

On By ellenbessoIn spiritual awakening, travel, Widows2 Comments

This two month trip to Melaque Mexico was guided. I felt compelled to go there, to the place Don and I had visited so long ago in 2001. I did not know why I was going, just that I needed to.

I was nervous about the trip for several weeks before leaving, sensing something important was about to happen. My intuition was correct; the sojourn there was remarkable, more uplifting than I had ever imagined.

Beginning the first evening at Tito’s Restaurant on the beach in West Melaque, the magic never stopped. I wrote about my uplifting portal experience that night in a blog called Don Softly Returns and will write more about the depth of it soon. The experience nudged me into singing open mic inside Tito’s the next afternoon, something I had not done before.

My singing over the next two months, the many new friendships and the first night’s profound experience all made my time in Melaque a rich spiritual experience. The town is a special place where many folks return year after year. I sense the energy draws them, perhaps on an unconscious level. The West beach area is particularly uplifting, but the entire town seems to have maintained the mellow vibe we noticed on our first visit 24 years ago.

I needed to travel by myself, that was key to the spiritual shift that happened. Solo travel, while providing a certain freedom, is not for everyone. It takes a certain type of person, a particular personality if you will, to travel alone. I know other women who do this, they are in relationships and also travel alone.

“Loneliness is part of travelling alone” says a well travelled neighbour. Although I was encompassed by the soft, healing energy of the West Melaque Beach and enjoyed time with numerous new friends and acquaintances, I was at all times conscious that I was alone in a deeper sense. Thirty years of travelling as a family and later in a couple had not prepared me for this.

I have travelled alone before for shorter times. Last February’s trip to Bucerias Mexico was not meant to be a solo trip, however my friend had to cancel about ten days before the leaving date. That trip worked out quite well as my small, five unit casita was populated by friendly folks and I met a couple of other women in cafes. In Toronto, although alone, I have friends and relatives to visit with.

I learned a lot about myself and about others during this time alone. It took me a while, but finally I understood that in order to connect with others some commonalities may be needed. The small group that returned annually to the hotel were close friends over many years, some knew each other from 20 years in Vancouver. They were like a club, friendly enough, however I was the outsider, and the only single woman amongst men and couples during the first month of my stay. The multiple daily communal visits, involving for the most part male driven conversation, were not what I wanted I realized after trying to fit in for awhile.

I found my tribe through music, both with other musicians and the audience of family and friends, and with women with shared experience and interests. My friend from Texas, a holistic and spiritual woman, was a new widow, staying in a hotel near mine. A common art interest was shared with another new friend from the collage course at Centro de Arte y Cultura in the town centre.

At this point I am not planning to take such a lengthy trip by myself, although it’s hard to say, as plans seem to change rapidly these days.