Erin's Journals

Just a thought… If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward. [Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.]

Here in the US, this is Martin Luther King Day. As we do every day, we remember him for his wisdom, his convictions, his strength and his courage.

On another spot in the calendar – but one that is significant in its own way (read on to find out why) – those who figure these things out say that this is Blue Monday, supposedly the saddest day of the year.

Why? Because if you factor in January weather (and goodness knows it was a headline across Canada this past weekend), lack of daylight hours, post-holiday bills arriving and the realization that your best, most fervent New Year’s Resolutions might not be coming to fruition, you’re supposedly “bluer than blue, sadder than sad,” as the old song went, more so than any other day of the entire year.

I call BULL. There is nothing – no date, no weather, no worries – that can combine to make any day sadder than the next because your mood is not dictated by a date on the calendar. In fact, it’s not even a real thing – no more than bad luck can be expected on a Friday the 13th – and it’s only been going since 2005. It began, supposedly, with something put out by a travel company. Got the blues? Take a cruise! (More on that later.)

Dismissed as pseudoscience, maybe this whole Blue Monday thing is actually a chance to reset and take real stock of the way we’re feeling. More to the point, what are we going to do about it?

Change Your thoughts – Change Your Life

Just Googling that phrase shows you how many people have come up with that very idea, whether it’s “your life,” “your reality” or “your world.” It sounds overly simplistic, but it’s true.

Our thoughts are just that: thoughts. Whether we conjure scenarios that we think could happen, or might be happening, or we dwell on old conversations and wrongs (as in, what did happen), we’re poisoning our own happiness by letting those thoughts dominate our minds. I’m guilty of this: an unpleasant conversation will replay over and over in my head until I push the STOP button.

How? By changing the focus. Part of the trick is in stepping back and seeing things from a different angle; perhaps not as they really are, but as they could be. By remembering that what people say and do is far more about them than about you. Don Miguel Ruiz made this point beautifully in his book, The Four Agreements: Don’t Take it Personally.

I translate that into “It’s their movie.” We’re not starring in anyone’s show but our own; often we’re barely even making a cameo appearance. Yet it’s their screenplay – tragedy, comedy, horror movie – that is dominating our thoughts.

Is the person who’s upsetting us thinking about us at the moment that we’re lying in bed awake at night, letting their unkind or insensitive comments run on a loop in our heads? The answer is almost always NO.

The person who forgot your birthday or accused you of saying something that you most definitely didn’t say – or mean in the way that they interpreted it – is not thinking about you. They’ve moved their attention to something else: that glass of wine, the TV show they’re watching, the YouTube cat video that is making them smile. Just forget them.

If someone is wrong – whether in a ridiculous comment online or in the way that they are perceiving you – you can’t change their mind. All you can do is your best. And if that’s not good enough, there are two words for them, and they most definitely are not Happy Birthday. You get to choose.

And finally, look at what has happened to you, whether a sprained ankle, a traumatic loss (and that includes your job), or a nasty break-up, and decide what YOU are going to do about it.

Our lives are divided into Before and After: what happened prior to the event that caused you such pain, and what comes in its wake. Much of what happens in our lives is not about the actual earth-shattering event, but how we handle it. What are we going to do to keep going, to make things better?

Sometimes there is no making better what happened. But how you deal with it – whether you give up, stand up or speak up – is entirely your choice. They can’t take that away from us, no matter what we’ve suffered. We have more power and strength than we can imagine.

So that, my friend, is what I have to say about Blue Monday.

I’ll be back with you here on Thursday, but tomorrow I’ll post a special Travel Tuesday journal as we close in on the final few days of pre-cruise specials, in case you’re just thisclose to making a decision to join us in October for Thanksgiving on the Rhine.

Just a thought… Working hard for something we don’t care about is called stress. Working hard for something we love is called passion. [Simon Sinek]

I was going to write back to everyone personally, but forgive me, I just can’t – at least not yet. My days are busy, as I’ll soon explain. So let me say here how deeply touched and hugely grateful I am if you are one of the hundred or so people who wrote after Monday’s journal with new book ideas. They ranged from a children’s book to delving more deeply into the ideas surrounding grief. Nothing yet to report…perhaps that idea of “patience” is a good one after all.

Here’s something I don’t have to wait for: Mourning Has Broken is being released by HarperCollins Canada in a soft cover version in one month and two days. February 18 (how I love eights and eighteens) is the book’s due date. And again, I thank you for making it – and so much in our lives – possible.

I realize that a great many who wanted to read the book have already bought it, but I’m told to expect the unexpected and that the book will have “legs” as they put it…as people continue to discover it. I’m grateful for that.

Just yesterday I sat in my dark little studio and talked on Skype for an hour with broadcaster Ralph Benmergui about the book, grief, our lives and so on for a podcast. It was really interesting, as his take is more spiritual than most. I’ll let you know when and where you can hear it, if you’re interested. Legs, indeed.

I’ve been spending a lot of time inside, despite the sunshine and warm temperatures beckoning out on the deck, as I continue to pursue my freelance voice work. I subscribe to a couple of sites, which put out auditions throughout the day. I look at them, see if I’m a fit, and then practically run into the studio, hook up my computer, record into it and then edit (to cut out breaths and mistakes) to send to the firm doing the hiring.

It’s laborious and not too fruitful; I get about 2 out of every 100 I try for. Even seeing that my auditions have been listened to is as much as I can hope for; a “thumbs up” or actually getting a job are icing on the cake.

I decided really to tackle this voice stuff in 2020 as a hobby more than a living. If I had to subsist on the money I get from these little jobs, I’d be panhandling near the Sonny Bono statue in downtown Palm Springs. But for now, until something really grabs hold, it’s keeping me occupied and giving me a sense of accomplishment. Even if it is just recording other people’s words and trying to give them what they want.

Mostly they are looking for younger, higher voices: listen to ads on tv or radio sometime and you’ll hear what I mean. Rob reminds me that I’ve had this older, deeper voice since he met me in my young 20s, and that I’ll never sound like that perky girl that gets so much work. But, as the saying goes, she persists.

I sometimes feel guilty for not getting out and doing more things, meeting more people and filling my time in ways that make my Fitbit not want to call 911 because it suspects I’ve fallen into a crevasse and can’t get out.

But then I think about my mom. She was a lot like me and when she spent winters in the sunny south, she’d stay inside and paint a lot of the time. Sure, she’d play some golf, or the ever-growing sport of pickle ball (kind of like tennis but with wooden paddles and a whiffle ball with holes in it, if I recall correctly).

She and Dad would socialize with my sister, brother-in-law and their friends. But mostly she quenched the creative thirst in her soul by painting. She didn’t do it to sell them or get exposure or praise; she did them to feel that she was using her gifts for her own enjoyment.

I guess, in my way, that’s what I’m doing, too. So no more guilt. (Or so I tell myself.) Besides, I’ve learned a new skill in editing (Rob always did it for me) and I really love it. My next step: learning to run my own AV for when I give my keynote speech and Rob doesn’t accompany me on the trip. I can do this…I think!

We’re feeling more fortunate than guilty to be here in the sunny climes while the palm tree outside our house in North Saanich is covered in snow. I read that Victoria broke a 49-year-old record for a single snowfall on January 15 with some 20-30 centimetres hitting the land of February flowers (19 centimetres since midnight), and then turning to rain, from Tuesday to last night. (That 1971 record included a mere 9 centimetres!)

I can’t even tell you what havoc this wreaks on a part of the country that is, for the most part, smugly and joyously unfamiliar with the white stuff. You may recall me telling you that when Rob and I moved out to the island three years ago, we didn’t even take our snow shovel with us. And it was a new one, dammit!

This is definitely the “new normal”; prior to our move out in 2016, significant snow accumulation was almost unheard of. But there’s been a significant snowfall every year since. (We’re very fortunate to have our friends Nancy and Charles looking in on our place back home to make sure everything is okay.) So yes, we’re counting our blessings here in California.

But – insane as this sounds to be leaving sun for snow – I do have a quick two-day trip to Ontario coming at the end of this month, for a special Facebook Live event that’s in the works. I’ll tell you more about it in the days to come, in case you want to join me.

We’re on a big learning curve right now, but maybe I’ll find that I enjoy stepping up onto another social media platform and we can find yet another way to be together, if you like. We shall see! Just two weeks into 2020, I’m trying to find new ways to create and to challenge myself. Now that my mind is clearer, I feel that I’m up for just about anything.

Take good care and thanks for coming by today. I’ll be back here with a fresh journal on Monday. Here’s to pursuing our passions – wherever they may lead. Even to snow.

Just a thought… When we speak we are afraid our words will not be heard or welcomed. But when we are silent, we are still afraid. So it is better to speak. [Audre Lorde]

All right, my friend, I have a question for you. I asked it in a more existential and rhetorical way last week, but today, there’s something perhaps you have a moment to think about. If you were expecting another book from me (and some have expressed that hope), what would it be about?

I’m talking this week with some folks who might help me make the next chapter happen. But the question is this: what more is there to be said?

Hundreds of people – bereaved or not – have written expressing their disappointment at just how unable we are to talk about death or the aftermath of loss. I call it being inept at the “language of loss” and, honestly, people don’t even want to consider learning it, unless they’re in the throes of it. Why would we, right?

As supposedly the only beings who are sentient about the fact that there’s an expiry date on us, we could lose our minds and slide into depression over it or become obsessed with how much time we have left. (I guess that’s why there’s no date stamp on us, except for the inner data that is wound up in our DNA.)

Just give it a thought – the phone call is Wednesday. You know you can email me, right?

Then there’s this other thing I need to share with you. A former radio pal from Victoria sent me a link to a CBC story Saturday about two moms who are raising a baby and using induced lactation so that the one who did not give birth can feed their child.

How did such a feel-good story turn my day upside-down? Here’s how: in one line, the reporter says that domperidone has helped; it’s mentioned very much in passing as “an anti-nausea drug that…enhances lactation.” Sounds benign – who wouldn’t take it, right? But here it is: women have to get their hearts tested before taking domperidone.

There’s a reason it’s BANNED (yes, I’m yelling; I’m also shaking as I write this) in the US and prescribed with caution in the UK. Here in Canada, our health regulators suggest taking the minimum dose for the minimum time.

Lauren was not taking a minimum dose when she died from what the coroner believed wholeheartedly (but was unfortunately unable to prove for certain) to be an interaction with the drug. I remember Lauren telling me that her pharmacist remarked, “Wow, that’s a lot,” when Loo was getting her prescription filled. And here we are.

I don’t get angry about Lauren’s death – so many other emotions are there to fill the void – except where domperidone, (aka Motilium) is concerned. Thankfully, last week’s National Post article linked to the Health Canada website and I fervently wish the CBC story had done the same. I wrote to the CBC’s feedback site on Saturday and am awaiting a response. (My last one several years ago to their ombudsman never did get answered, so we’ll see.)

Please, for the love of your family or breastfeeding friends, remember the name domperidone. It sounds like Dom Perignon – a champagne – so it’s easy. A heart test is all we’re asking that doctors request before prescribing; the drug might be safe for most, but we are of the fervent belief that the side effects can be deadly in some cases, and were in the case of our family.

I’m thankful for this email from M, whose mom and a friend did just that:

My Mom is a huge fan. Talks about you like you are one of her old friends. While I just had my second child and although I think she is perfect, the doctors were worried she wasn’t gaining enough with my breast milk. Being a bit stubborn I opted not to give formula and tried my best with herbal supplements and pumping. Although it was working slowly I jumped at the chance when the doctor offered a prescription to domperidone. Thinking it was an easy solution and started taking it. Two weeks after taking them, a family friend who is a nurse was concerned I was taking them. Told me about the issues it can cause with your heart. When I mentioned it to my mom, she begged me to stop taking them and made me Google your perspective.

I’m so sorry for your daughter’s death, but I thank you for sharing your story. Because I stopped taking those pills and am disgusted that doctors continue to give them to mothers who like me will try anything for their kids. So thank you and I wish you nothing but peace and love.

That’s all I have for today. My tweets about this on Saturday garnered a lot of responses from people who were unaware, or who had acknowledged hearing about the cautions needed with Motilium, because we had been trying hard to spread the word. It’s not a lot, but it’s a start. So, thank you.

Just a thought… Confidence in the past gives us the courage to look forward to the future. [author unknown]

What a week, what a week – and it’s only Thursday. The tragic deaths of 63 beautiful Canadians in Tehran in a plane crash could very easily have hit home for us: having hosted two Iranian Canadians in our house in the past year, I scrolled through news stories yesterday with tightness in my stomach. The lovely man and woman we know are safe, but, oh, the suffering for those families in the aftermath of this enormous disaster.

I awoke yesterday to clips of the slurring, sniffling, haphazardly made-up “president” stumbling through a speech to the United States without the background cacophony of a helicopter’s engines to hide what appeared to be his slipping grip on just about everything from diction and balance to logic.

Already in 2020 it’s been hard to keep looking to the horizon and feel positive. But that’s what we have to do, those of us who don’t have a role in making change actually happen.

Every day, like the yogi who sits with the smallest smile to convince herself that a position is one she can endure for just…a few…more seconds, each day I post a positive picture and quote on my Facebook page. Sometimes I tweet them or post to Instagram. And I’m finding that this role I’ve inadvertently adopted, as a purveyor of positivity, actually helps in my attitude towards life.

I mean, if I don’t believe what I’m saying, I’m not going to share it. I’ve been like that with endorsements during my career, and I’m not shredding my integrity now just for more clicks and likes. Plus, people really seem to appreciate them. So I’ll keep doing it! Besides, it helps to keep me busy, and I really really need that right now.

So, where we are…the winter is going well and I look forward to a visit in February from all three of my sisters. Are we getting Harry and Meghan as neighbours back in North Saanich? It was almost a foregone conclusion that they’d want to move there (not that we know it’s their destination). After all, it was where Rob and I decided to land after leaving our lives, as soon as we’d visited. Perhaps, perhaps.

Back to reality: besides letting dark thoughts permeate when the occasional military jet screams overhead, of course…. I worry for our own armed forces personnel in areas being attacked because of the whims of mad men. But amidst the predominant silence that surrounds us sits a much smaller existential crisis. What now?

I’m sure it’s a question that a lot of people ask as one year fades away and a new one steps through the open doors of our lives. But where do we go from here? I’m not good at introducing myself to agents (and I definitely need one) but my plan is to expand my public speaking in 2020.

I’ve sent a produced video of the 30-minute business version of my “Reclaiming Joy: You Have a Choice” speech to a few speakers’ bureaus and gotten automated responses, if any answer at all. It’s not what I’d hoped for, but I guess it’s to be expected. Everyone wants to be the next Brené Brown. (But, um, what if I am? LOL)

As I set my dream map for this year, I see so many possibilities. Maybe I can be invited for a guest spot co-hosting a TV show, which is a big hope, but one I hold onto. Sure, there are geographic and financial limitations (most shows don’t pay guest hosts or their travel and accommodations – if can you believe that) but I look at Jann Arden, my hero, as inspiration!

There is some podcast work in the offing and I may be asked to be a presenter of a home mortgage equity program that looks honest, promising for customers and truly worthwhile considering. There’s a real estate podcast that’s in the works, too. And with our history of moving, I sure do know the questions to ask!

The future holds plans for me that I can’t imagine, but patience was never my strong suit. I can’t just sit here and vegetate. I have so much more to do and to give, but what – and to whom?

This is really the first time since I stepped away from radio that there hasn’t been a “big plan” in the works. Write the book. Re-write the book. Promote the book. Do interviews. Make public appearances. Sign books, give and receive welcome hugs, share stories and offer any words of comfort I can.

While the empty spaces on my 2020 calendar afford me a certain amount of relaxation, it’s not what I really want right now, to be honest. I need this book, this project, to take on another life, but I can’t foresee what that’s going to be, or where it’s going from here. Again, patience – dammit!

How do I get Mourning Has Broken into the US? It has been delivered by hand (by an amazing woman named Carolyn) to Marie Osmond, herself a bereaved mom. Did she get time to read it over the holidays? Might she suggest it to a producer on The Talk? Who knows?

Right now – here, today – I’m grateful for you and to have a place where people can reach out to ask me about sobriety, as they have been doing. It’s a real honour and, again, I don’t give advice – just support and perspective. There are people who know so much more than I, but I’m lucky to have a position where people might say, “Well, if she had a problem and can talk about it, why can’t I?” and truly, that’s the most rewarding part of all of this.

Have a safe weekend and thank you for coming by. Think peaceful thoughts and we’ll get through all of this together.

Just a thought… The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new. [Dan Millman]

HELLO!!!! So, have we settled on just what we are calling this year? 20-20? Two-thousand-and-twenty? Two-thousand-twenty? I hope that there’s some kind of consensus; I’m tired of recording two or three different versions of a year when I do auditions. “In two-thousand-and-ten…in twenty-ten…” and on and on. An informal Twitter poll I posted showed nearly 100% of us are saying 20-20. So there we go!

OK – confession: I wish I hadn’t put off writing a new journal until the 6th; I figured many people wouldn’t be back in their routine until today if the school board schedules (by which we used to time our radio vacations) are any indication. I have a lot to tell you.

Some of you know from FB and other social platforms that Mourning Has Broken (which comes out next month in soft cover) ended 2019 on some Top Ten lists: #9 on the Toronto Star for Non-Fiction Canadian, #10 in the Globe and Mail; #20 for international authors, non-fiction in The Star.

Rob and I had a joyful morning (on my late, feisty grandmother’s 111th birthday Dec. 28) as the lists were sent our way by readers – thank you all. And the news couldn’t have come at a better time.

My dear friend and radio partner Mike Cooper left the day before the lists came out. The silence in the house was, as the saying goes, deafening. Molly kept trotting around, checking to see where the man with the big voice was. The heaviness of that quiet, the lonely realization that it was back to our “normal” after several boisterous days together, hit hard.

We enjoyed a road trip, a Christmas turkey dinner, a night out together (seen above) and enough moments to hold onto for the months between now and our next visit, likely in May when I return to Toronto for two events.

On December 30th I marked my 6 month “birthday” as they call it in 12-step groups. Yes, I made it to 10 years the first time around, but every milestone is a big one. So yay. More cranberry and soda, please. I posted this on Twitter:

There were literally hundreds of messages and a few dozen extremely personal and touching emails from people wanting to know more. Of course, I answered as best I could, deeply honoured to have been taken into people’s confidence and hearts.

There were two people on Twitter who objected to me using an F-word, even with dashes, to express myself. (One said I was obviously not a nice person. Such a gift he has, being able to sum up another person so succinctly through just one tweet!) I responded this way:

And the tweets that followed were nothing short of hilarious, almost all dipping into their colourful vocabularies as well. Ah, Twitter.

Out of those two tweets came an interview with the National Post. An intern named Merna got in touch on NYE day and asked for a chat. Of course, I obliged, and the result is here.

I did reach out later and offer Merna one correction on the initial print article: I was off work, not for a year, but a month. However, there’s one word that made it into the story that I wish I could change: “advice.” I am in no way giving advice to people who reach out to me; just support. I’m not in a position to offer anything except perspective and what is working for me.

My biggest message is to talk to someone – anyone, even if it’s online – if you think that your drinking is not something you can control any more. (Is that advice?) I cringe to think that my fellow 12-steppers and the folks who have guided me to where I am today think that I, of all people, am giving advice. So please know that’s not the case.

I haven’t gotten a “how dare you?” email yet (and have resisted reading comments on the Post website, as that’s nothing but a cesspool, if past experience with that section of the paper has taught me anything) but with that one word, advice, I would not be surprised at all to get one. I guess I’ve been lucky.

But honestly, there are a great many more things to be concerned about today than one little word that may be misconstrued: the devastation in Australia, the insanity coming out from a grievous gargoyle on a golf cart in Florida. But I’ll keep trying to remember to accept the things I cannot change, and to try to make a difference in the ways that I can – however small.

Have a gentle “first day back” and I’ll be with you on the usual social media platforms, plus here with you Thursday. And I wish all of us a peaceful 2020.