Mary Jane Hurley Brant, M.S., CGP
Author of When Every Day Matters: A Mother's Memoir on Love, Loss and Life
The month of February focuses our attention on love. Cards are bought, candy is given, kisses abound. What is it about love? We simply cannot get enough of it. "I love you" and "I'm in love with you." Is there a difference? Yes. "I'm in love with you" has more infatuation and projection attached and "I love you" has more of day-to-day companionship attached. Each has its mystery. Mystery, by definition, cannot be completely understood. I like the word mystery because it elevates a subject. Anthropologist, Dr. Helen Fisher, writes that mystery is part of infatuation and critical to romantic love. But the feeling of security that long lasting love provides is important, too. Both kinds of love do indeed make the world go round.
This second month of the year also brings our focus to the heart, this vital organ which beats an average of 100,000 times each day. But our emotional heart is complicated: it has both dark and light places. On the dark side of the heart are emotions such as jealously, envy, rage and revenge. These negative feelings feed on themselves and harbor ill will.
We have all experienced being hurt and hurting others - sometimes knowingly; sometimes unknowingly, but continuing to hurt another is beyond the pale. Darker feelings also lower the self-esteem of the person carrying them. We cannot have high self-esteem while holding onto the darker emotions in our hearts; they are mutually exclusive. I have never known anyone to hold both.
On the light side of the heart are love, forgiveness, compassion and transformation. The Swiss psychiatrist, Carl Jung, taught that the "Self" was the organizing principle in our psyche which brought harmony to our unconscious, our conscious and our ego. Our personalities become more "whole" when we pay attention to our inner worlds as well as our outer worlds and behaviors. Developing the "Self" (which I think is the sacred part of us) is key to our personal happiness when we desire a compassionate and loving relationship with our God, ourselves and others as well.
People who love are people who forgive. Who cannot appreciate how our hearts are transformed when we hear someone say, "I'm sorry; please forgive me." So let us have the grace to forgive or at least to let go. Let us reach out to everyone this month, but particularly extend a hand to those with broken or grieving hearts who have suffered a loss of any kind. February - with society's emphasis on Valentine hearts - can be especially painful if someone's arms ache for a beloved.
And so, my Friends and Readers, I embrace the frequently quoted bible passage, "There are in the end three things that last: faith, hope and love and the greatest of these is love." A wise thought indeed which offers each of us an immediate and beautiful plan to make Every Day Matter.
Please visit her website www.WhenEveryDayMatters.com for more information about When Every Day Matters: A Mother's Memoir on Love, Loss and Life and to purchase the book or at Amazon.com
Mary Jane Hurley Brant, M.S.,CGP has a Masters Degree in Counseling and Human Relations. She is a Certified Group Psychotherapist and Grief Specialist. She has been on national TV, Radio, Internet radio. Her expertise is about the grieving process. It comes from her clinical education, her 29 years working in the field and her life.
MJ's father died at 13. In 1989 her beloved 18 year old daughter, Katie, was diagnosed with a cancerous brain tumor. Katie died in 1999 at age 28 but not before she lived a 100 lifetimes of good. Katie began her own 501(C)(3) foundation to help fund pediatric brain tumors (www.katieskids.org)
After Katie's death, MJ wrote to survive. Then she wrote to help others through the grieving process. On Oct. 1, 2008 When Every Day Matters: A Mother's Memoir on Love, Loss and Life. was published by Simple Abundance Press - It takes the reader through MJ's journey of loss and finding hope again so others might do the same. Her book additionally addresses what happens to families when they go through traumas and the effects on a marriage. It is a candid, deeply spiritual and intimate book.
Sarah Ban Breathnach (author of Simple Abundance which sold 6 million copies) believed in this book, "It is an exquisite evocation of life after loss.” Please see http://www.wheneverydaymatters.com/early-praise-for-when-every-day-matters/ )
MJ has recently contracted the foreign rights for When Every Day Matters with an Indian publisher for her book to be distributed in India, Africa, Sri Lanka, The Philippines, and Malaysia. See her website WhenEveryDayMatters.com.
She is available in person or by telephone for consultations