Grief in the Season of Joy Part IV.

I got really lucky with who I got for a dad. My dad was great. He was imperfect, and he would be the first to tell you that. He could totally be an Eeyore, and was known to both have a spark in his eye and drag in his step. He epitomized contradiction. His humanness, his lack of filter, and his big radiant heart, he was incredibly loved.

His memorial service was huge. It was about 500 people and I stood on stage and shared intimately, vulnerably, heartfelt feelings without breaking into sobs. In that moment on stage I felt so cared for, so held, and definitely not alone.

So much of Grief with a capital G has been the feeling of being alone. My dad left me alone. And I’m not alone. I have great friends, amazing family, a beyond supportive partner. It doesn’t take away the aloneness of grief. Everyone wants to, so badly, but they can’t. No one is the person who died. No one can bring back the one person you want to make you feel not so alone.

“People who have recently lost someone have a certain look, recognizable maybe only to those who have seen that look on their own faces. I have noticed it on my face and I notice it now on others. The look is one of extreme vulnerability, nakedness, openness. It is the look of someone who walks from the ophthalmologist’s office into the bright daylight with dilated eyes, or of someone who wears glasses and is suddenly made to take them off. These people who have lost someone look naked because they think themselves invisible. I myself felt invisible for a period of time, incorporeal. I seemed to have crossed one of those legendary rivers that divide the living from the dead, entered a place in which I could be seen only by those who were themselves recently bereaved.”

— Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking

Joan Didion saved me. I read A Year of Magical Thinking five months after my dad died. She so perceptively encapsulates the feelings of insanity that come with losing someone you love. She made me feel less alone.

I write this fragmented, imperfect reflection on grief because it helps me. If you have lost someone and you feel so very alone, I want to gently remind you that you are not alone. No one will have your specific pain for your specific bond with the person that you lost. You may only really be seen by those also recently bereaved, but you're very much, not alone. 

Grief in the Season of Joy, Part III.

There are photos, before he died. It was 7PM on the east coast, 4PM on the west coast. We had just arrived to Portland, ME. It was sunset.

We were happily on an outlook gazing over the city. It was beautiful. Also there was dog poop, the scent was wafting in. Couples were sitting at this outlook, enjoying the view. People were taking photos. We were taking photos, I was hysterically laughing at this incredible serene, instagrammable moment made real by stanky dog poop.

Since my dad died I have had many more incredibly serene, instagrammable moments. In those picture perfect moments what is still there the metaphorical undercurrent of realness by stanky grief and pain.

I was in Maine when my dad died. We were on a vacation after the wedding of a very dear friend. I was already raw with emotion from seeing someone I loved open his heart in a huge celebration of love.

At around 12AM my mom called and I couldn’t hear the alarm in her tone. She sounded fine. I think she asked how my trip was, trying to delay the words that came next, “dad died.” She said.

I was sitting, but I know that I crumpled, or fell over, or something. But really all I remember was hearing myself yell, “Noooooooooo” It wasn’t a tone I had heard leave my body before.

Sobs overtook me and I had to go throw up a little. They don’t really tell you that, I don’t know who ‘they’ are, but I am telling you. That it can happen. You can be an adult who is so sad, crying so hard, that you need to throw up.

Grief in the Season of Joy, Part II.

I have made a lot of mistakes in my perception of grief. I have experienced a fair share of loss and so I thought I knew.

It felt like my experience was a bullet on a resume.

Lauren Kaneko-Jones, Licensed Acupuncturist, Health Coach, Sensitive Human

Life experience:

• grief, the losing of people I have loved, the knowing how to survive, I’m qualified
• when it happens to you, I can help you.
• when it happens to me, don’t worry, I got things covered.

I thought the knowing-how-loss-works could prepare and protect me. My qualifications would make me immune to the pain. In fact, I was EXTRA prepared for this loss! My dad’s mortality previewed when I was seven years old with a major heart attack in a third world country.
He was so lucky to survive!
We were so lucky he survived!
However the manic feelings of being lucky don't spare the pain of a loss when it happens. 

Ever since my dad's first heart attack I have prepared myself.
‘Dad might not be at my wedding.
Dad might not know my kids.
I am lucky, he is lucky, we are lucky.’

What I was really trying for was,
‘I will be ok,
we will be ok,
this will not hurt me,
this will not be hard,
I was ready, he was ready, we were ready.’

Yet even with all the trying and the aim to escape the grief of my dad's death, what happened was something more like this,
'Dad's death was beautiful.
He was so lucky to die quickly.
We are so lucky he didn't suffer.
Dad's not going to be at my wedding.
Dad's not going to know my kids...
I am... so not ok.'
The holding on to the feelings of 'being lucky' was an optimism that could only go so far. There were only so many words of comfort. Beneath all the attempts to be ok, was deep love and grief.

My luck that my dad survived 24 more years beyond the first heart attack was something I held onto tightly. Somehow, throughout those 24 more years, I thought it would make losing him a bit softer.

I assumed (in hindsight maybe it was sheer hope) that grief’s pain would elude me. Because, hopefully we lose our parents and they don’t lose us. It’s the natural order. And yet, it feels like the worst thing that ever happened.

Image Credit: Faces and Voices of Recovery

Grief in the Season of Joy, Part I.

Summer in Chinese medicine is connected to the heart, which is connected to joy. The heart does not lie and whatever we have been feeling comes right up to the surface as we go into the summer solstice late night June 20th. The longest day of light illuminates what is within us.

For me, what is within me is grief of losing my father. I have wanted to put my grief into words so that maybe it could help someone else, maybe it could prepare them for their own sorrow. Or maybe it would just give them permission for it to be really hard, really big. But I haven’t been able to put it out there. My fear is that people are scared, they can’t handle it, they don’t want to see my pain. That might be true, but also, stories of others grief have made me feel so less alone, so less insane that finally, heart thumping, hands shaking I am sharing.

Yesterday, Father’s Day June 18th, 2017 has been 9 months since he died, to the date. It was just as hard of a day as I expected it to be.

I took my 99 year old grandmother to church, something he did 9 months ago the day that he died. I came home and I took a big, long nap. It is hard to be awake, and a feeling, hurting human. It is so hard to remember that I have no more father on Father’s Day.

Goodbye to All That, on Loving and Leaving a Clinic

This was an essay I wrote as I am saying goodbye to the Clinic I have worked at for 4 years, owned for 2.5 and given thousands of acupuncture treatments to hundreds of people. The end is bittersweet and marks the beginning of a full launch into Well in the West. 

Inspired by Joan Didion’s  - Goodbye to All That, on Loving and Leaving New York.

“It is easy to see the beginnings of things, and harder to see the ends.” - Joan Didion

I remember the first time I found Service Workers’ Acupuncture Project on Yelp. It was a block from my apartment and treatments were done in a group setting. It was different from other community style clinics because there were massage tables instead of chairs. I had a background in community acupuncture, which usually means 5-10 recliners in a room. SWAP stood out because it had an intimacy I hadn’t seen in other group acupuncture clinics.

When I first introduced myself to Holly, the owner of SWAP, I said ‘Of the many community clinics that are now available in San Francisco, your clinic seems to align with many values that I have in my own life and practice.’ We made a lunch date, we chatted. She thought about how to incorporate me into her business and it happened easily, one baby step at a time.

My introduction sentence to Holly is still true now. This clinic, Service Workers Acupuncture Project is the most aligned with many values that I have in my own life and practice. It has been really important to keep the acupuncture affordable. It has been really important to keep acupuncture in a group setting. It has been really important to me to have space for loved ones to come get treatment together.

I have treated spouses, parents and children, best friends, business partners, on the tables next one another. The quiet exchange of glances that loved ones have as they come out of an acupuncture treatment is incredibly precious. It’s a fleeting moment of peace and connection. I can see how incredible it is to transform alongside someone you love. To somehow mend your heart a little bit, or walk away with a little less pain.  The love that emanates from people after an acupuncture treatment is almost tangible. It radiates exponentially more when the people in the room already have love for one another.

Over the past four years I have been able to celebrate with patients. It has always been a victory to fend off cancer for another year, to celebrate a pregnancy or birth. I have stood alongside people as they have quit their jobs or marriages, traveled the world, gotten their dream jobs, battled cancer and graduated school all while taking some time to get some acupuncture. I have also shared sorrow with patients as they have lost their parents, friends and colleagues, and for me, this year as I lost my dad. Celebrations and sorrows are focal points in the clinic. Together we mark growth, pain, and the passing of time.

I am lucky. Because, on a daily basis, I get to share in incredibly tender human moments. It is truly an honor to be an acupuncturist, to see these changes big and small, life changing, earth shattering. It reminds me that we all go through this. We are all on this ride together.

It has been an incredibly challenging decision to leave all that 513 Valencia has held for me, for us, and our time together. However, I am excited to make a bigger impact with Chinese medicine, and all the human tenderness that happens on a daily basis. I will be focusing most of my time on Well in the West’s new Seasonal Health Coaching program. It will be launching in the fall.

I will still be seeing patients privately in my home in Berkeley for now. And if you want to keep in touch on what treatment options, education I am offering, please hop on the newsletter for Well in the West. I will sometimes bare my soul, and sometimes give you recipes. It all goes together.

With great love & tenderness for all your healing,

Lauren Kaneko-Jones

Emerging into Spring

Last spring I had a huge emergence out of the vulnerability closet. I got engaged. Then I wrote about the complexities of engagement for me and the post got shared far and wide. It was scary to be exposed in that way.

The end of the summer I had a hard time maintaining the moment of Spring and as I began to get myself back into the grooves with back to school vibes of fall, my dad died.

Fall and winter were dark for me. (They are for everyone even without a recent loss.) The natural patterns of these seasons are looking inward and into places we have not looked at all year.

During Fall, the season was swallowed in the grief and logistics of a loved ones death. The Winter was welcomed as a time to hibernate, rest, take deep self-care and recover. To top it off I was dealing with the intense grief of losing my father paired with the ever present adrenal fatigue. 

But life goes on, and the darkness descends back into itself and life emerges again into Spring.

emerge definition: /əˈmərj/ verb 

1. to become manifest : become known
2. become apparent or prominent.
3. recover from or survive a difficult situation.

For me, the third definition resonates so deeply: 3. recover from or survive a difficult situation.

Now that Spring is here, I am ready to grow and move forward. I have to admit, it is fucking scary to recover and survive the death of my father. I can tell that this Spring I am experiencing immense growth. Simultaneously I am honoring that the whole world is new and raw without the presence of my dad's protection.

I look forward to this season of growth. I am curious to explore the recovery period of this season. And always, always looking forward to what emerges this year. 

Big Magic Chai

I love this recipe. The ritual of taking 30 minutes to make this magical creation and the physical relief I feel every time I drink it is amazing. 

Elizabeth Gilbert has been a big teacher to me through her book Big Magic and her open sharing on social media.

I, personally, think we need many more teachers like her, sharing the vulnerable, the messy and behind-the-fame parts of their lives. It helps us to understand that these powerful people are human too. 

For a little magic, warmth and health in your life this winter, I bring you Big Magic Chai.

Big Magic Chai Recipe

Bring 3 cups of water to boil.

Add:

• 3 Cinnamon sticks
• 1 to 2 inches of ginger, diced
• 1 teaspoon of cloves
• 1 teaspoon of whole black pepper
• About 8 - 10 pods of cardamom, crushed.

Bring it all to a boil, let it simmer, covered, for about 10 minutes.

Add 2 black tea bags. (If you like, you can throw a vanilla pod in there at this time, as well. If you want to go really nuts, throw a star anise in there, too. But be careful. Star anise is the beets of spices — it takes over EVERYTHING.) 

Simmer again for about 5 minutes.

In the bottom of the biggest mug you've got, put a tablespoon of honey, a teaspoon of turmeric powder, and a tablespoon of coconut oil.

Take a bit of the chai liquid, put in the mug, and whisk it until the honey, turmeric powder, and coconut oil are all blended.

(Alternatively, you can blend it all in a blender, but it works with a whisk nicely.)

Now fill your giant mug 3/4 of the way with hot strained chai liquid.

Heat up (or froth up) some milk or milk-like substance of your choice. (I go old school, like they do in India, and I always use cow's milk — but feel free to use whatever milk-like product you like.) Top off the mug with the hot milk, and stir.

Sprinkle with cinnamon.

Drink that mother down, preferably while reading a good novel.

WILL CURE ALL*

Heart, 
LG

Bringing Vacation Home

Vacation is amazing. Nature is restorative. Both of them are vital to surviving life in an urban environment. 

Each time I leave town, especially if it is out into nature, I can feel my whole body relaxing. That's the point right? It's to take a break and do less. The point is not only to do less, but also to think less.

This break was amazing, not everything went to plan, but problem-solving there helped really put me there. All the thoughts of business, writing, wedding planning melted far, far away.

Now that I am back in the middle of a city, sirens run loud, my block smells like urine, people all around me are stressed and tapped out, I feel lost. I feel warm and cozy and happy in my body surrounded by lots of discontent. 

In cities, we run ourselves ragged. From work, to social lives, to exercise, even self-care can become another bullet on a never-ending to-do list.

What if we, stopped adding to our to-do lists?

What if we had less stuff to take care of?

What if we bring our vacation home?

Can you do that? Can you do less? Explore more? Get curious about all the amazing things that surround you in this life?

I invite you to try this out. Explore something new where you live. Take some things off of the to-do list, put your phone down, and take some time to just BE in your daily routine.