Hola scrumptious hearts,

Thank you from my heart to yours for all the love, support, sharing, and kindred-spiritness about walking this grief journey. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

I don’t know how to share just how much I am blessed and grateful that I share this goddess journey with you all. A thousand goddess sisters, all lifting each other up.

Last night, I had a dream I was in Jerusalem with Justin and a group of friends. We were eating gluten free pizza and raspberry smoothies, and checking out archaeological digs.

This morning, I remembered a funny thing that happened a couple of weeks ago. It makes so much sense now… I kept having dreams about my darling friend DB – he was my closest friend as a teenager. He was always like a little brother to me – just like JC was to Chris. Anyways, I kept dreaming of DB, and each time I would wake up and a voice would say: Tell DB you love him! I kept ignoring it. I didn’t want to be one of those crazy hippies sending soppy emails (ha!) But then the voice said to me: You’re going to kick yourself if DB leaves the planet and you don’t tell him you love him. So I did. And it was really beautiful. And then JC left. Bugger. SO CLOSE, intuition. SO CLOSE. Aaah well – what can I do but trust it was all perfect anyway?

I wrote the below the day before Justin passed away. It makes more sense now more than ever.

***

Over the last few weeks, I could feel the long fingers of panic creeping back into my life. First with little moments of breathlessness. Then a vague feeling of strain looping around my chest. Until it became The Great Unignorable, stopping me in my tracks with a gaping hole in my solar plexus and rasping breaths.

Hello, dear panic attacks. You are here again.

It’s understandable of course. My mind is a kind big sister to my nervous system:

But of course you feel like this dearest! You just became a mama and you are working how to care for a babe AND you are in the middle of selling your house just as the market went a bit down and your first buyers pulled out and your second ones still haven’t signed the contracts but hopefully should be right this very moment AND you are moving AND mr hottie has quit his job to move AND you worry about your business like all business owners do. And have I mentioned you just became a mama? It’s utterly understandable for you to feel this way.

Thanks big sister mind! You rock!

So I stopped ignoring it.

What do you need, dearest heart?

I need walks at dusk. I need long slow breaths. I need to feel like I’m not the headless running chook. And I need energy put back into me again. I need some healing and restoration.

So I went to see my lovely blue eyed acupuncturist this morning. It’s funny how different life is BB and AB. Before Babe and After Babe). AB meant an acupuncture appointment for me was an orchestrated event like a ballet consisting of sitting in the back seat with Starry while we drove there to sing Eency Weency Spider (she’s still not a fan of car rides), getting there early enough to feed her again, talking to the acupuncturist while cooing at her, mr soul hunk taking her for a walk while I got acupuncture only to return ten minutes later with an unsettled little mermaid, then for the thrilling overture, him hovering lil mermaid over my un-needled boob to feed her while I pissed myself laughing. Aaaah, mamahood, you really do teach me how to be strong, zen and laughing!

So between the intricate baby balleting, Lovely Acupuncture Man told me all the things I was experiencing were from a depleted system after a year of pregnancy, birthing and breastfeeding. It makes sense really. Mamas are amazing creator creatures… We really do need to top up our energy levels. Acupuncture dude also suggested some not-so-delicious herbs to restore my system, which I readily agreed to. What I’ve learned since becoming a mama is that my own health (and mood) is crazy important to keeping our lil family floating along beautifully. So any investment I can make in keeping me healthy and radiant is really damn worth it. That’s what I say anyway!

Then today we had sacred synchronicity play into our lives. We were guided to a mall, and ran into a lovely angel friend who I circled with a few years ago. She’s an amazing mama, and we ended up eating pies together with our three and a half fairy children (she’s getting ready to welcome another little empress in her life! SO beautiful!)

It was just the balm I needed. We talked about all the good things: mamahood, birthing, bushflower essences, red tents and women circles. I could feel Chris beside me grinning. It was just like old times – talking about life and spirit interwoven. We felt like our old selves – just this time with a four month old mermaid sitting on us, eating paper as the bigger kids drew pictures of lions.

Aaaahhhh… Our old selves… We’ve missed you! As much as we’ve grown, we still haven’t quite integrated our old spirit-talking ways back into our lives fully. Does that make sense? When me and hunky do talk, it’s a rush to talk about feelings and moving and new parenthood. We don’t get to share as deeply about our spirits as we used to. I know things will change again – they always do. It was just so precious to be talking our talk again today.

My panic attacks have ebbed away again. I’ve promised myself good self care… Rejuvenating myself with soul tonics: Australian Bushflower Essences in Calm & Clear and Emergency mixes. Sleep. Green smoothies. Gentle talks with my love. Multivitamins. Stopping having Perfect Parenting rules on myself, and giving myself a bit of slack, a bit of space, a bit of kindness.

Just the remedies this mama needs…

What about you dearest heart? What are your soul tonics? How do you heal panic attacks?

I love you I love you I love you,