Banana Tea: A natural mood + sleep boosting recipe.

Do you struggle with sleep much? I know for me sleep is currently off + on. Throughout Dave’s cancer + following his death my sleep was non-existent. So, I am still working hard to recover from all of that deprivation. It’s so hard on the body. This Banana Tea though! Cheap, easy + about as natural as you can get.

You may have heard it said before that banana peel contains the most nutrient-dense part of the fruit. But, who really wants to eat a banana peel? I don’t know, maybe someone out there has a good recipe for ingesting it. If so, please share!

This tea, however, gets you the nutrients without having to chew your way through a peel. I think it is a SPECTACULAR option to be able to sip your way towards a sounder slumber + happier mood. Tea just sounds comforting but then add in the health benefits.

Why is it that bananas help? Potassium + magnesium baby, they are a HUGE help when it comes to equipping your body, and bananas are an amazing natural source for these minerals. The peels also contain tryptophan which naturally produces serotonin + melatonin in our bodies. What?!?

Yep. This may be the cheapest + most natural option for helping you catch some solid wink eye. Let’s not stop there, serotonin is the key hormone that stabilized our moods, it gives us feelings of well-being. Can even boost feelings of happiness! and who doesn’t need a little extra dose of that these days?

Here is the recipe:

• 1 rinsed organic banana*

• cut ends of banana off

• boil 2-3 cups water

• place banana in boiling water

• simmer for 10 minutes

• strain + serve

• can add a sprinkle of cinnamon

• I add a drop of vanilla

• *note: for low glycemic just use peel and omit the fruit.

YUM!
Tell me you don’t have a list of five people that immediately come to mind who could use this Hope tip.

Let me know if you try this + What you think. Cheers to a healthier you!

Songs of Sorrow + Hope Found: The Next Right Thing.

For a few months now God has been pressing on me to share this. It’s pretty vulnerable and raw for me. Honestly, it just brings a ton of tears with every word I type. You see, music has been the healing balm to my heart. Well, hear me out for a minute, by healing balm I mean it is something I am applying to my life that is aiding the process towards healing. It isn’t a one time application. And that is why this post will eventually become a series of posts that God intends for me to share with you.

So, I’ll give you a little back story. Several months ago I was writing scriptures on my wall with my metallic gold pen while blasting worship songs from my portable speaker. At one point, as I was emotionally scribbling quite carelessly, the written words being scribbled on the wall began to match the lyrics sounding from the speaker… and then within minutes a text from daughter no.3 came in as the final reinforcement. God was colliding my actions + my intake to a very real place of awareness (that almost felt like an awakening jolt), He saw me, and he was in fact lining things up in my life. A VERY strong, in my face, reminder that He holds the POWER to align whatever he wishes and He is the pure love carrier that meets us in the thick of our chaos and dread. HOPE arrived in a flash that day.

Since then God has continued to use music to be the ONE thing my mind and heart can soften to. Spoken words seem to be quickly drowned out. For some reason people talking, instructing, giving advice… well, it all takes wayyyy too much energy. Probably because my mind is constantly at battle pushing back the memories. Reading leaves me wondering what the words said, and so I repeat, and again they disappear before my brain recognizes them. I don’t even make it off the initial page (other widows have told me this is very normal - that reading and retaining will take years to come back). But put WORDS to a melody? Ahhh, it just flows like honey in the direction of my pain, creating a bittersweet process of darn good grief. And that doesn’t mean it’s easy. It is painful, but it is beautiful, because it is progress. It is the NEXT RIGHT THING.

For some reason sharing this process I go through with the world seems a bit too exposed for me. BUT throughout this WHOLE SHABANG of my husband’s diagnosis and death I have told God to just use me. Pleading with him to constantly remind me to be willing, and to please let the end result be God bringing some form of goodness out of the pain. I’m a strong believer of that process. God wastes nothing! I have seen it happen over and over again, the broken story shared, the revelation of redemption, and the action of it reaching out its loving hope to lift another out of a pit.

So here I am today, sharing a song from a children’s animated movie. Why must it be a song from Disney’s Frozen 2? Well, I hope you will listen to the song and read along to the lyrics. I think you will understand the heart thumps of it as you do, even if you don’t have experience with deep grief yet.

I’ll tell ya, this song left me absolutely frozen in the theater, barely able to breathe. I kept my eyes stuck to the screen without a shift to the left or right where my kids sat. Hoping I could avoid the gasping cry that was forming in my throat. I just prayed through the whole song and asked God to hold me together. It’s heavy and it is OH-SO fitting for someone who has lost a spouse.

Take a listen and let me know how it speaks to you. (Click the title below to listen)

The NEXT RIGHT THING by Kristen Bell

I've seen dark before, but not like this
This is cold, this is empty, this is numb
The life I knew is over, the lights are out
Hello, darkness, I'm ready to succumb
I follow you around, I always have
But you've gone to a place I cannot find
This grief has a gravity, it pulls me down
But a tiny voice whispers in my mind
You are lost, hope is gone
But you must go on
And do the next right thing
Can there be a day beyond this night?
I don't know anymore what is true
I can't find my direction, I'm all alone
The only star that guided me was you
How to rise from the floor?
But it's not you I'm rising for
Just do the next right thing
Take a step, step again
It is all that I can to do
The next right thing
I won't look too far ahead
It's too much for me to take
But break it down to this next breath, this next step
This next choice is one that I can make
So I'll walk through this night
Stumbling blindly toward the light
And do the next right thing
And, with it done, what comes then?
When it's clear that everything will never be the same again
Then I'll make the choice to hear that voice
And do the next right thing

I pray this song finds you in a place where you are allowing yourself to FEEL the pain and recognize there is a light to walk towards. God is right here with us. With us in the next choice, the next step, the next tear. He understands like no one else can, and he loves us so deeply.

Be well,

Kimber

Good Grief, what does it even look like?

I wish someone would tell me what GOOD GRIEF looks like. I take that back. No, I don’t! And here is why…

It doesn’t look like one particular thing. It doesn’t look the same from person to person. It doesn’t look the same day to day, or even hour to hour, or sometimes even minute to minute. Show me someone who loved deeply and lost, and I will show you yet another way that grief will show up on the scene. It is complex and individual to the person. And…. long lasting for most.

And MOURNING… the act of processing the deep abiding, long-lasting, grief. That is another thing entirely. Show me people who do that well and I will show you the most raw, revealing, public, tear your sackcloth, scream in the streets display of wailing you have ever seen. Stop and really think on that for a minute, how would that make you feel to witness? Um… perhaps too emotional for you? I mean, what would you do with that? Could you watch it comfortably from afar? Would you gently step up and touch it? Would you try to approach and hug it away? OR would you shift your attention elsewhere? I think internally your heart would quicken its step a little at that emotional exposure. Are they mad (as in out of their minds)? Do they need emergency assistance? Why can’t they control themselves? Many would want to do something about it to make it stop because it is just plain uncomfortable. And it should be…and it will be. And so what is a person going through it to do? Our culture holds many silent beliefs about this.

Okay, let’s open this door for a second…should those grieving “contain and control” the majority of the time? Is it a private matter? And let’s talk about the speed of it. Should it change its appearance rather quickly? Like would it be appropriate if the deep, incapacitating grief lasted a month or maybe two tops, following the loss? Then around 2-3 months we should probably expect the person to start engaging more and stepping back into the “real world” as many say. Oh, but they still seem and act different, perhaps guarded, distant, gloomy. Well, by six months surely they will be well on their way back to normal. And by a year… BAM… rolling forward with serious strides… in fact… some may say the wounds of grief should be basically healed at this point.

Oh friends, I am sitting here telling you that (let me count) it has been eight months since my husband passed and I am not sure I feel like I have taken one step towards healing. In fact, I am feeling the depth of the loss more deeply. It’s funny how the reality of all that the loss touches takes serious time to press into your thinking bank. Memory serves us well, until it doesn’t. My memory still tells me from experience he is going to walk through the door, that I need to check with him, that he is the expert and I need to wait for his opinion, that I am hurting and he is the one physical space where I can rest and feel comfort…. that last one is literally killing me. The VERY thing I need him most desperately for (comfort) is present because I NEED him most (first place besides God in my life). That one makes me feel like I am going mad. Reasoning ones absence in our lives doesn’t come easy. It takes time, a ton of different emotions, a bazillion spoken (or written) words, and even more thinking through. It hurts to think, talk, do and so our brains naturally do their very best to avoid it. We are literally fighting within our heads ALL THE DAY LONG. The brain does all it can to avoid the pain and at the same time it is screaming at you about your inabilities. Inability to focus, to do, to remember, to work through it. It is like 10,000 gears are working in different directions and at one no certain point they just end up jamming. Shutting down. Frozen. This typically happens to me in the late afternoon. I find myself DONE and ready to just close my eyes, sleep the rest of the day, or just turn everything off around me. I am literally exhausted mentally and physically with the simplest of things seeming impossible to accomplish. My brain just won’t work anymore.

This leads me into my current stage of discomfort with my grief. I am BEYOND ready for this pattern to be over, and to move on. I have things to do, I need to earn an income, I need to flipping just plain feel happy. I fear I am exhausting my friends, and I am certainly exhausting myself in the trying. But one can’t just give up… I must keep striving.

I do however trust the good, some relief from grief, is coming. I cling to that hope. A day will come when I have held more happy than sad within my minutes. I will always remember, I will always be sad it went how it did, but I will also look forward to the new. For now… I’ll just continue to feel and process until that day comes. So that the day will come.

And for those of you who are walking alongside someone who is grieving, or even approaching someone who is grieving. You don’t have to understand it. In fact, you probably can’t. But you can have immeasurable grace and love for them. Ask to help them with tangible tasks. The collections of those are often the most overwhelming. And listen… don’t be afraid. Let them RANT and just listen, and care. As they talk they are processing it out themselves. Fill the space with love and grace.

Be well,

Kimber

Trauma Permanently Changes Us

Trauma. It wasn’t a word I would have thought I would be using with such a common type of death as cancer. However, when you sit with your person, and go through the treatments, and watch them suffer, and eventually die… well, it is indeed traumatic.

As the days go by, and some of the memories choose to resurface, you know… the kind where you are back in that room again, with all the sights, sounds and smells. It is then that your heart begins to race, and your eyes leak at the gut punch of reality. Your brain wants to turn it off quickly while clinging to it at the same time. This is because for a brief moment your mind would almost choose to be there (even knowing the outcome) versus sitting in this empty void you have been left with. The uncomfortable space between yes, this is my new reality and no, I don’t want to do this. I am sitting here telling you no one wants to do this.

The gut punch ache never leaves, even though your brain is doing a pretty thorough job of trying to protect your shattered heart. But when the brain is triggered by God to let the walls drop a little… “It’s okay, she can handle that memory, drop that wall, let her remember.” And BAM it unexpectedly slaps you awake… it is right here in this space that you are beyond aware you, no doubt, have experienced trauma.

A lot of times I find myself wondering if I will ever be the same, and I have come to the conclusion that, no, no I won’t. Will I still have joy, yes. Will I continue to have moments where I laugh until I snort at the silliest of things? Yes. Will I be able to go a week without bawling? Maybe? Will life go on and will new life experiences be fulfilling. For sure. But still…

I found a lot of comfort in this article that I found by Catherine Woodiwiss: A New Normal: Ten Things I’ve Learned About Trauma. Here is an excerpt:

This is the big, scary truth about trauma:
there is no such thing as “getting over it.”
The five stages of grief model marks
universal stages in learning to accept loss,
but the reality is in fact much bigger:
a major life disruption leaves a new normal
in its wake. There is no “back to the old me.”
You are different now, full stop.

This is not a wholly negative thing.
Healing from trauma can also mean
finding new strength and joy.
The goal of healing is not a papering-over
of changes in an effort to preserve or
present things as normal. It is to acknowledge
and wear your new life — warts, wisdom and
all — with courage.

– Catherine Woodiwiss

I am different now. If you have experienced trauma, you are different now. It is okay. Don’t try to hurry your way back to an old state of norm to please the people around you. It won’t happen. Give yourself the gift of grace and patience as you discover your new life, day by day.

Cheers my friend, here is to a new life with warts, wisdom and all.

Be Well-