Moving Through Uncertainty

A turning point in my grief came one night on the phone with my brother, Dominic, a physician. It was several months after my third miscarriage and after countless medical tests and invasive procedures, no cause could be found for any of my pregnancy losses. My mood vacillated between sadness, numbness and anger. I was exhausting myself with my inability to move forward but felt powerless to move beyond my pain. I felt certain that if someone in the medical profession could just tell me the reason "why" I had miscarried three times (and be able to guarantee that I would never miscarry again), I would finally have my answers and be able to move beyond my grief.

In his calm and loving way, Dominic read to me from one of his medical books which stated that in a large percentage of early miscarriages a cause is never found. "Annemarie, you have to accept the fact that you will probably never know why any of your miscarriages happened. You'll have to learn to live without ever knowing why."

The power of his words were a shock to my system and opened up even more layers of grief for me. "How will I ever be able to heal and find closure if I never know why?," I wondered. The whole concept seemed impossible, but started helping me to get unstuck because it allowed me to begin to let go of an unanswerable question. Letting go of the "why" helped me to focus my attention where it needed to be- on my loss and the depth of my feelings surrounding all that I had lost.

As I worked through my pain, I began to ask myself different questions. I spent time writing down my answers and visualizing what I had written. It amazes me to go over the answers I wrote all of those years ago and see that I have created for myself the life I envisioned back then.

Here are a few questions to ask yourself:

• "If you were in the best possible health, how would you feel and look?" "How can you create this for yourself?"

• "If you could have the life of your dreams what would it look like? Where would you live? What would your home be like? What would you do for work? What would your relationships be like? How much money would you like to make?"
  
  This is a powerful exercise to gain clarity about what you want. The exercise helped me see that while I had spent so much time focused on having a child, there was so much more to my life and dreams than having children. It reminded me of my hopes and passions in all the other areas in my life. Just the act of writing down your answers, visualizing what you want, and letting yourself feel the positive emotions of receiving all that you want can feel exciting and motivating. It will help you begin to see the possibilities that exist and give you the courage to move through your uncertainty.
  
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