Solace Grief Support Society

Grief thought: When we are dealing with a loss, being gentle with ourselves is more important than ever.🦋

A lot of us struggle with taking good care of our own needs. Because of this, we have to make a choice to practice being kind to ourselves every single day. 🌅

When we treat ourselves well, it makes it much easier to treat other people well, too. Kindness easily spreads that way. 💟

We often find ourselves wishing we could return to the past.

The issue with this is that we are no longer who we used to be. Experiencing loss has altered who we are, and living with this grief keeps shaping us every single day. 💔

We are completely different now. 🦋 We have learned new lessons and survived tough moments. We are going through a major transformation, meaning we are becoming entirely new people. Because of this, there is no way to go backwards.

It is impossible to get our old life back. All we can do is work on building a brand new everyday life and in the process keeping our loved one alive through memories and honouring their legacy. This is a very good and meaningful goal to have. ☑

If you are struggling with grief, you do not need to go at it alone. Visit www.solacegriefsupport.com for more information about our free services.

Life and love are both messy, and dealing with loss is incredibly messy, too. 💟 Sometimes, we try very hard to clean it all up. We want things to be organized, perfectly neat, and easy to understand. We create strict rules and try to force ourselves to follow them. We set up schedules ⏰ and try to control exactly how we grieve. 💔

But this never really works. The wild, untamed nature of our sadness is much stronger than any box we try to keep it inside. It spills over and smashes its way into everything anyway. Because of this, it is better to just let the process be messy and believe that there is an important reason for all this mess. 🪣🧽

A heartfelt 💜 thank you to the volunteers, sponsors, donors, and participants who made this year’s So You Think You Can Putt event such a wonderful success. ⛳🏌🏼‍♀️
A special thanks to Highwood Golf Course for their continued support and holding this event.

Your time, generosity, enthusiasm, and support helped bring our community together and make a meaningful difference.

We are so grateful to everyone who played a part. 💚

Sharing stories about who we love and who we have lost helps us understand our lives better. 📖📖📖 Putting the events in order is like building the wooden frame of a house. 🏠It gives our experiences a clear shape and purpose.

Our memories act like a bright light inside that house. 💡That brightness is very important when things feel dark and heavy.

We should share our stories out loud. 🎤🗣The simple act of telling them changes us for the better. 💛

After someone we love dies, remembering them is a normal part of grief. But sometimes, remembering brings too much pain, and we just want to forget. 😢

Trying to forget does not work. 🙅We might try to stay busy or lock our thoughts away. That might help for a little while, but memories always sneak back in. 💭💭💭They show up in our sleep. 😴 Just when we think we are fine, a familiar smell 💐or a song 🎶can suddenly bring back a strong memory that knocks us off our feet.

It is better to welcome our memories. When we accept our memories and the feelings they bring, we stop wasting energy trying to forget. Letting ourselves feel these memories helps us move forward. 🌄

Weekend affirmation: It is okay for me to grieve. I will not be ashamed of my sadness.

We are allowed to be sad and to show our hurt.💔Feeling grief is just as normal and real as feeling love.

Sometimes, the world wants us to hide our sadness because it makes other people uncomfortable. 😔 When this happens, it is okay to ignore them. We must protect our right to cry and mourn.

We are thankful that love is a real part of our lives. 🙏🏻Because we loved so much, sadness is now a part of our lives, too. We will always defend our right to feel both love and grief.

Navigating through sorrow often feels like a winding path. We move in unpredictable directions—sometimes we take steps forward, other times we regress, or we feel like we are simply spinning in circles. During the unpredictable process of grieving, it is completely normal to experience a sense of confusion, despair, or a lack of direction. It is easy to feel entirely adrift.

Grief does not come with a set of instructions; it is an unmapped expedition. During the moments we feel most disconnected, it is crucial to remind ourselves that taking a nonlinear route does not mean we have lost our way. We are simply processing our emotions exactly as we must.