I'm just going to cut to the chase with this. I am not OK. And that's OK.

Let me explain.

In November of 2020, my Dad passed away. I hinted on this in episode of our podcast and may have mentioned it here and there but the fact is it he was sick (no it wasn't COVID) and while his death wasn't a surprise it sure hit me hard.

I went through many of the typical stages of grief and healing even though things seemed amplified by the holidays as we he passed right before Thanksgiving and Christmas was his favorite holiday.
But I was on the mend and getting to understand my new normal.

However, just like I say in a lot of our Podcasts and posts. We're not immune to life throwing us curveballs. But even knowing that nothing in life is consistent for long I wasn't prepared for the sudden death of my only sibling almost 6 months to the day that our Dad passed away. Her death was a complete shock to us all, as many accidentally deaths are. So I have to admit that I am not ok.

I know that it's OK to not be OK. I am human and have emotions, and frankly there wold be something really really wrong with me if I was OK after the death of two close family members in such a short time frame. So while that seems odd to mention, I want to mention that I'm the sort of person who finds that sort of thinking comforting. The knowledge often empowers me whether it's happy, factual or sad. Knowing that it's OK to have sadness, grief. To be not ok, that makes it OK on some level. I hope that makes sense.

SO...what I want to do now because while I am a leader in this group I'm also a Post-Op who's had some significant (150 pounds PLUS extra) regain as well as a ton of complications and other life issues many of you have had.....so I find support in this group as much as you do.

Now I want to say this and I hope that you will listen because I do NOT want you who are reading this to send prayers and thoughts and well wishes. So please do NOT comment with those. While I would be blessed to have them, I want this to be supportive to EVERYONE not just me. I want this to be a learning event that helps more than just me because while I'm the only one in their mid 40's that I know of who's lost a sibling I know that I'm NOT alone with this magnitude of loss. Death is an unfortunate part of the circle of life and we need to acknowledge it and understand what to do about it. And beyond death, we all have something that comes up that rocks us and throws our best laid plans off track...which as you know often leads to our eating getting off track. We need to know that we aren't alone in those events. We need to know that bad things happen and we may not be OK initially and that's OK. We need to know what to DO.

I am instead URGING you all to comment below with tangible ideas on how you manage the curveballs life tosses our way.

How do YOU avoid emotional eating when the absolute worst things happen? How to YOU pick yourself up after bad news?
How you do handle a fight with your spouse?
How do you calm yourself down when you just can't deal any longer?

Therapy? Journaling? Venting to friends? Leaning on your support group? Shopping?

Let's share some GOOD healthy techniques that do not involve food or curling up in a ball and hoping it gets better. Because we're all human. We are going to have good times and bad. And that's OK. How we deal with them though? THAT is what matters most. It IS possible to manage stress, loss, joy, emotions etc without falling into old habits and that's what I want this thread to be about. So I hope you can participate.

~~XO Suzi