jennifer louden

Today, five years ago, I woke up on the floor of my parent’s living room.

Next to my dad’s hospital bed.

He had a heart attack while I was in Italy. He had been battling pancreatic cancer for two years, and his heart, mercifully, had given out.

His heart’s timing, however, was hard for me to bear as by the time I got home, he was in a coma.

Today, five year ago, in the afternoon, my father died.

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I tell you this as an introduction to Cath Duncan’s story. She has taken her sorrows and turned them into deep healing and transformative service. It’s hard, hard work, work we all must do if we are to savor life again after deep loss.

We can’t make our losses serve us or others; we have to serve them first, and then see what is revealed when we open the door of the tumbler and peer inside at the polished rocks.

Cath has tumbled and tumbled, and she has many polished rocks to share with you today.

Thanks Cath for being here today.

Savor & Serve with Cath Duncan

What are you savoring these days?

I’m savoring the strong, wise, steady women in my life who’ve walked with me through my most painful experiences after the loss of my kidney health, our daughter and the hope of ever naturally birthing a child. I’m savoring the power in little steps – both figurative and literal little steps. Little steps that add up and rebuild resilience and resourcefulness surprisingly quickly.

Now that I know what it is to be sick and I understand for the first time how precious my body is, I’m savoring what I’m learning about the healing effects of food in it’s natural, sugar-free and toxin-free state.

I’m savoring the peace and love that my husband Andy and I have, in spite of the sudden halt on our dreams and the many different pressures and stressors we’ve faced while living in a new country and dealing with loss and significant health challenges at the same time.

This quote by George Regas sums up the way that loss has changed my priorities this past year: “The important things in life cannot be gotten in advance. They must be gathered fresh everyday.” Those little ordinary small things that can’t be stored up and have to be gathered fresh everyday are what I savour these days.

What helps you savor life, love, pain when don’t want to?

Sometimes it’s okay to say, “I think this sucks and I don’t want to savor it right now. I just want to survive it.”

Recognizing that it’s there and that you’re resisting it is a gentle step towards relating to it, taming it and eventually savoring it.

My innate curiosity is what brings me to being able to begin to savour the experiences I’ve received that I had initially not wanted. Curiosity opens our awareness to discovering things we didn’t notice or appreciate before. And when we notice more, we find that most experiences in life are not either awful or awesome. Most experiences have facets that are awful and hard to bear, and also facets that are beautiful and awe-inspiring. When we try to shut out the awful, we shut out the awe at the same time.

Curiosity motivates us to explore and discover the whole story and to be wiling to experience all that life has to offer – both the losses and the gains. Once you find the awe-inspiring parts that sit alongside the awful parts, you naturally find yourself savouring the moment and appreciating all that it has to offer.

How do you serve? 

I used to think that service meant doing some big, remarkable thing that helps lots of people. From this side of experiencing the shortness and preciousness of life, I can see that in my pursuit of the Big, Remarkable Thing, I lost my focus on the little ways I could serve and I focused more on “people out there” instead of the people who were already in my life or even in my house.

I’m doing better at prioritizing my service to friends and family. Having never been very mindful about that sort of thing before, I’m continually amazed at how much it matters to others and how good I feel prioritizing this sort of ordinary service.

If you could serve in any way possible – no restraints, limitations, or boundaries, what would you do? What would that look like?

We’re very ashamed of loss and grief in the modern Western world. I want my service to spread the idea that pain, loss and grief aren’t shameful. I want to teach people how to be a part of compassionate communities that view loss and grief as a natural, safe and healthy part of being human, so that we choose to grieve in community rather than in isolation and shame.

We’re designed to live in community and life is about losses and gains, so why do we so often share only our gains and hide our losses? Grieving in community helps build connection, resilience, wisdom and resourcefulness for all of us.

I’ve started this work at www.rememberingforgood.com. As a place to start, please download a copy of my book here.

How does savoring help you serve? Or does it?

Savoring is the appreciation of service and also the inspiration for service. Savoring reminds me that life is short and precious. Savoring helps me to be more curious and to take in more of the diversity and richness of what it means to be alive. That, in turn, deepens my service.

Savoring is also about being open to fully receiving other people’s service to me, which keeps the flow of service multi-directional. When service is multi-directional, then there are no power imbalances and we all enjoy abundant, love-filled relationships where we all feel like we’re getting more than we give and there will always be a reserve from which we can all draw. The world doesn’t need more famous people or gurus that help the masses. We need for all of us to serve each other in small ordinary ways.

My receiving and savoring of others’ service to me helps others to become better at receiving and savoring, which ultimately makes my service to them more valuable to them.

If you’re just giving, and you numb yourself to receiving, you cut yourself off from understanding what other people’s needs are and how to meet those needs. Equally, if you’re all about giving and you’re never receiving, you cut yourself off from understanding your own needs or knowing what you want in life. For me, savouring is the receiving and appreciating of love and serving is the giving and nurturing of love. We need both.

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Cath walks, makes art, supports bereaved people to live wholeheartedly after loss, tends to her small urban garden, writes, coordinates volunteers at the MISS Foundation and enjoys having compassionate conversations with new and old friends. Cath is an experienced Social Worker, Neuro-linguistic Psychology Master Practitioner and Martha Beck Life Coach. Get her goodness here.