I am not your therapist … but you are welcome to join me on my journey

I had realized right from the beginning my needs to care for others and my own needs to heal were not always incompatable. I told many of Baxter's friends, "I am not going to be your therapist, but you are welcome to join me on my journey." I also said numerous times, "Just because this is hard, doesn't mean it is not healthy." These are phrases that I have learned the wisdom from in the past and had many opportunities to put it into practice the last three weeks.

I gathered together with some co-workers yesterday and shared some of my story. One of the things I was extremely grateful for was that throughout this journey, I never experienced ambiguity as to my next step. That is not to say I experienced total chaos when I ventured far beyond my own nose and started to plan a few steps in advance. I was careful in my use of language and the words: needs, wants, preferences, and indifferences. I also had an amazing support team that really meant it when they said, "Anything we can do to help," as you can see in the above picture.

Now that the dust has settled, in my first few baby steps of grief, I wanted to celebrate the choices that worked for me. As you will read in the blog, I had many opportunities to connect one on one with people. My nature was to just rush out and do it myself. However, when I took a breath and listened to my intuition, I realized that I could invite individuals to join me. I realize now that they were not only helping me, they were helping themselves.