What do you want? When we widows are grieving it’s hard to just get out of bed let alone experience life passionately and purposefully.  I know that we were created to live deliberately, not postponing joy for some time in the future, but how do we get to that point in our journey? Wherever you may be in your grief, I invite you to live deliberately.  With each tick of the clock, a moment of your life is forever gone.  When our loved ones found out their time was limited they seemed to gain clarity.  We need to have their clarity of purpose and a renewed passion for the things that really matter. Some widows have a tendency to delay doing anything because they fear not being good enough.  It's important to change your mindset and realize that often "good enough" really is good enough.  This way of thinking can help you stretch yourself so that you don't undervalue your potential. If we lived deliberately as if our time was limited (which it is) we would spend our days differently. There is a saying that our entire life is reduced to two dates (birth and death) and the one little dash between them.  Our lives come down to what transpired between those two dates – what is in our dash. We don’t have control over many things in life – our birth, our parents, where we lived and its culture or the date of death.  But we do get to choose how we spend our time: living deliberately with joy or spending precious time chasing things that don’t really matter and/or focusing on the past which cannot be changed. To live deliberately is to simply appreciate your time, what you do and the people you spend time with.  I’m challenging you to start living your life as if it was more precious than gold: live in joy, love completely with no holding back, learn everything you can about positive living and go after life boldly. At the end of your life will you be ready or will you be begging death for more time to live?  Death may very well say, “I gave you last week and 52 weeks in just the last year alone.  What have you done with the time you already had?”  Will you say, “I didn’t think it mattered?” Before you start listing all the physical things you want, you need to be quiet and think about what you really want because you only have one life.  You may be able to get more money if you waste it, but time spent wastefully is forever gone and can never be replaced. Another thing that holds us back from what we want is thinking that we can't do it or that we somehow don't deserve it.  But you can and should follow your dreams.  It's your time and you're able.  Time to let go of self doubt and believe in yourself. You and only you control your thoughts, dreams and actions. So, what do you really want? Early Intervention Field Traumatology (EIFT) and Author/Founder of “The Sisterhood of Widows”