It's Not Easy on Either Side of the Bed...

Health, Wealth and Happiness...we all put plans in place in our lives to ensure we are happy, healthy and have enough money to support ourselves through the “golden years”.  We look to financial advisors to help us plan for our future and physicians to help us live healthy and thrive. When the stock market or our investments decline, and we're losing money, we look to our advisors for guidance in what to do next.  When our health declines we look to our physicians for guidance and support to walk us through the journey. Until you actually live with a disease, can you understand the sense of urgency you experience to find someone who knows what to do about the thing that is uprooting your life and taking control...How our story starts, determines how it ends, and how we show up as professionals along that journey, directly impacts the stories our families create along the way.

When I first started supporting families along their journey’s as a Social Worker, I struggled with finding the right word or phrase that would ease their suffering, grief and uncertainty. I believed that my job was to fix the situation by connecting people to resources and getting a plan in place, and everything would be better...Did it help? Absolutely! That is imperative to a successful foundation, but it is not the part that matters.  Today, based on my own personal experiences and understanding, the magic is in the listening! It's imperative we have the guidance to help us identify our unique obstacles, and find our own solutions. The vulnerability and compassion to sit with us when we grieve what should have been, and help us re-frame what is possible today, so we can live in spite of the disease and not be at the mercy of it is an eternal gift.