Christina Rasmussen

Pursue yourself!

Good morning from Austin Texas. Here’s to a great new month for us all. What is one thing you are planning to do in November apart from the typical things we do before the Holidays. What is something you need to do for yourself?

Do you have any plans for the weekend?

Thank you Psychology Today for sharing my article on how to look for our Invisible Losses. I am grateful that we are able to have this conversation as a collective. Giving each other permission to feel our emotions without shame.

5 Signs You Are Grieving an Invisible Loss It is time to acknowledge that invisible loss is a big part of our everyday life, even though a lot of us have not experienced tragic grief.

May each book find its way to the heart that needs it.
May it answer the questions the heart has.
May it guide the heart to a new direction.
May it provide clues to a new beginning and healing to an ending.
And may this book be a map to all the places the heart craves to go to next.

With blessings and prayers this Tuesday morning!
Christina
Order on Amazon: https://a.co/d/9KShTcC

Invisible Loss: Recognizing and Healing the Unacknowledged Heartbreak of Everyday Grief Invisible Loss: Recognizing and Healing the Unacknowledged Heartbreak of Everyday Grief

We wake up every morning preparing for the hit and a forsaken life.
Companionless.
Paralyzed.
Flattened.
No more.
I won’t let you stay in the ocean.
I won’t let you convince yourself that you are still being knocked out, just like you were the first day.
We are going to stop this senseless experience.
How, you might ask?
Take a moment to breathe consciously.
Your body is free to stand up and walk away from this experience.
Your mind is free to find a new place to call home.
The waves can’t stop hitting you all at once, but we can make them less frequent.
I am going to ask you to shift your mind from the pain to something very basic like the grass on your feet.
A book.
Something solid.
It has to be basic and unchallenging at first.
It has to be easy.
We just need to take you away from the waves.
We need to exit in a flat way.
Go get your nails done.
Get a haircut. Bake a cake. Go window shopping.
And if you think these suggestions are ridiculous and you can’t change your life by baking your way out...
Think again.
Consider this for me. The waves will keep hitting you if you stay unconscious.
This is the first step to finding your new ground and making sure fear won’t get in the way of that.

- Christina Rasmussen

You have been saying NO to things that remind you of what it was like to be happy.
Afraid of breaking that heart of yours again.
But do you know what the feeling of life is made of?
It is made of the thing that made the earth, and all the planets. It is that strong.
And if you let it, it will try to walk by your side instead of behind you.
It will sit on the couch with you and watch a comedy.
It will take you on a bike ride on a Saturday morning.
It will find a way in.
The feeling of life will not rest.
As long as you are here, it is here too.
You just have to notice it.
Can we try?
Just pause for a second right here, right in the middle of the sentence.
Feel. Feel the brokenheartedness. Feel the grief.
Now just move your attention a little bit on the side, right next to grief.
That is where it is.
The feeling of wanting to live again. Laugh again.
It is there like it always has been.

- Christina Rasmussen

I know it feels like your life completely sucks right now, and this may feel true and it might be true.
If this was my thought I would keep this part as my own. No denying that. Life does suck after loss, sorry.
Next, we move into the last part of this thought,
I miss him too much to function.
I know you miss him, but is it true that you can’t function?
I think this is grief speaking to us telling us not to bother to go out and do life.
Let’s change this whole thought now to make it our own.
“I used to love mornings, but it's been hard lately. I miss him so much, but I want to try to at least function today.”
Do you see how we shifted this thought?
If we did this with just a couple of thoughts a day that's all it’s going to take to not be stuck in the waiting room of grief.
Don’t let grief think for you, not even for one day, not even for one thought.
Grief is sneaky. Very sneaky. But life is sneakier and more alive than grief could ever be.
Here's to your own thoughts today and every day after loss.

- Christina Rasmussen

There are never enough words to express the sorrow of what the families are going through at Uvalde, Texas.
It is unspeakable. Unfathomable. Horrific.
But we have to find the words.
To speak what is unspoken when something so evil enters our world.
We must utter every part of the grief.
Every moment of it. And we must do it together. So evil can go back in the shadows.
Back in the darkness of where it came from.
Say what needs to be said.
Scream it if you need to.
Let the grounds shake from the sounds of our souls. Chasing this evil darkness away.

My daughter Elina graduated from college today. We could not be any prouder. She is wise beyond her years. She graduated a semester early and had three part time jobs throughout college. It feels like yesterday when we went college hunting 4 years ago and fell in love with the LMU campus in LA. Time is not real but it certainly feels like it is on days like these when your oldest daughter all of a sudden is a grown up ready to start her life. Elina we are in awe of you. And we can’t wait to see the story of your life unfold.