If you’re curious and bold, you will eventually ask the question:  Where is my life headed, and how do widows find joy and purpose? Sounds easy!!  No, the truth is, I’m 67 and still trying to figure it out.  It’s a liberating feeling when a widow accepts that she no longer has to define the second half of her life based on someone else’s definition of widowhood. For many of us, being a widow is when we begin to realize that our life is out of balance.  It’s also when we begin to understand what is really important to us.  We start to focus on recalibrating and creating the life we want to live, so we can find joy again. From what I’ve learned as a widow of about seventeen years, is that widows aren’t seeking to retreat or deny, but instead they are seeking their relevance and purpose.  How do we help each other?  I think the first thing is to tell a new widow that they have more choices than they know.  Unfortunately, our society offers little support and inspiration for the many changes we widows are faced with.

“The Sisterhood of Widows – Private Group for Widows”

So many widows still continue to feel confused or frustrated about how to heal their broken hearts.  If you’re one of them, what you need to know is that you are not alone.  Widows find joy and you can find support, starting with my Private Facebook Group, “The Sisterhood of Widows – Private Group for Widows”. As I look back at my first five years as a widow, the most important thing I learned was that if I wanted a deep and meaningful future I needed to embrace “long-life learning”.  I had to let go of my ego so I could invite in curiosity, humour and find joy.  Simply put, it is in our journey of grief that we learn to appreciate the joy of discovering what’s next. Keep moving forward and your heart will follow you.  Being hopeful or happy in the face of your grief requires a deep immersion into your grief, it requires naming the pain to expose the awfulness of it, so that you can truly rise above it to be a widow that finds joy.   To Our Shared Journey,                                                                                       Mary Francis is a Certified Grief Recovery Specialist® Certified Law of Attraction Facilitator, Early Intervention Field Traumatology (EIFT) Author/Founder of “The Sisterhood of Widows”   Widows finding joy, widow stress, widows first year, widowed friendships, the sisterhood of widows, widow support, grieving, how to grieve, grief, life of a widow, #thesisterhoodofwidows, #widow, #grief, #griefsupport, #widowsupport, #howtogrieve, #widowshelpingwidows