@Catherine Hickem - I am going to bare my soul here. I’m truly wondering as I’m moving through the PACT content if this program can address the complex issues within my family. I shared my concern with the onboarding individual I spoke with, and she assured me that it would. Firstly, I am separated from my spouse of 37 years due to a very unhealthy relationship I stayed with for religious reasons and was not able to leave until I was able to address religious trauma and deconstruct. My children experienced a very dysfunctional / unhealthy upbringing due to the religion. My “spouse” is very manipulative with my children, and I was labeled the “bad one” for leaving. Someone had to “stop the insanity” and chaos. I mentioned in the PACT call this evening that my daughter has been married to a Russian orphan for 15 years who has caused significant issues in our family dynamic over the years. We have shown him compassion and grace, and he has done nothing but take advantage of our kindness and patience. HIs own adopted family has not had contact with him for many years due to his behaviors. He has worked very hard to attempt to isolate our daughter from us and has had periods of success in doing so. I very much want to have a healthy relationship with her, and the request from her is “to let the past be the past”. This has been an ongoing pattern as his behavior patterns continue repeatedly, so “the past” consists of 15 years including recent events. He is resistant to treatment, and my daughter has to carry all the responsibilities, as he can’t hold a job and doesn’t work … staying home smoking weed and playing video games. She has stated off and on that she is going to divorce him and doesn’t follow through. She has done therapy and various healing modalities and continues to be manipulated by him. I have been estranged from my oldest son from a teen marriage for over 6 years now. He is an abusive man, and his children have suffered significant trauma. One of his children died due to his negligence. I have no confidence that my relationship with my grandchildren can be restored as he has turned my grandchildren who I once had a very close relationship with against my family.

Well I knew ahead of time that hearing from my oldest daughter would get me in emotional mind. I've had years of not hearing from my two daughters on holidays but my oldest has started reaching out some. My middle daughter who has passed always made a point of reaching out. Well my oldest sent "Happy Mothers Day" a few flower emojis and said she hoped that I would have a nice day. This put me into emotional mind. Hindsight was just to say thanks and wish her a happy Mother's Day. But no.....in emotional mind what came out was that I hoped she was being shown lots of love and appreciation. I added that she has quite a large crew there - (her 3 adult children and grandchildren.). After I had wrote that my day was going nicely. Hindsight shows me that my ego's agenda was to try to show her how much I loved her and that I had empathy for all she does for her children. In the past, I would have been thinking poor me being all by myself but I have moved on to really wanting joy for her. Joy for me was just hearing from her. I sense that my daughter read it as if I was feeling sorry for myself not getting a lot of love and appreciation. We made some headway last year and I think this was a step back for us. Darn! I've been replaying this over and over and not being very kind to myself. 😢 Any kind words would be appreciated.

It's very disappointing to check into a 12:00 meeting and realize that you missed the meeting because there was a last minute time change again.

Ambiguous grief, also known as ambiguous loss, is a type of complicated grief that can occur when someone experiences a significant relationship loss without a physical death. This type of loss can involve a lack of information or closure, and can manifest as sadness, anger, emptiness, and loneliness.

I find myself in a boot because I broke a bone in my foot. Not exactly something I want to deal with right now but life happens and we often have to deal with things we didn't plan. I handle things like this pretty well most of the time but sometimes, I get weary and have less patience with myself. We are often generous with everyone but ourselves and I want to be sure that as you enter this Mother's Day weekend, you show respect to the woman in the mirror. Treat her like a best friend. She deserves all the love and kindness she can get.