So many friends and social media friends are working really hard to heal. They inspire me. So many brave warriors doing everything they can to support their own healing and recovery. I wonder if I’d rise to the occasion as they have. Do people you know inspire you with their determination to get better? Their healing power?

This was the case with my amazing BFF, Marilyn. Here she is, in the ICU at Stanford, on her phone. Not how I ever imagined someone to look in the ICU. But, that was Marilyn. This was about the time I developed some healing tools, just for her.

It started with healing affirmations. They were crudely rendered, since I’m no artist, but I packaged them up in a cute little box. After a few days, she told me how helpful they were to her. They had, she told me, healing power.

“I read them, my nurses read them and so do my visitors. You need to make these and market them so others can benefit.”

She died later that year. A few months later, in her memory, I launched my healing and grief products at A Healing Spirit.

Oh, I still get teary when I write about her. She was an amazing friend and missed by so many of us. I miss her every day. Every day.

I was lucky enough to be able to spend a lot of time with her as she went through treatment and hospitalizations. Long talks about everything. Like so many, she struggled with what she was supposed to learn from her illness. She was convinced that stuffing her emotions for so many years contributed to developing multiple myeloma or perhaps was its cause. She had a lot to say and realized not everyone could hear it–or even wanted to. But I heard her.

What if someone fighting a health battle doesn’t have a way to vent? to grieve the loss of their healthy life? to get those feelings out? That was a question we talked about and that was the genesis of the Guided Journal for Healing that so many patients have found helpful. Many buy a guided journal for themselves and others are lucky enough to be gifted one by a dear friend.

If you’d like to cut right to the chase and see my Guided Journal for Healing, here’s the link.

If you’d like a little more detail about how the journal works, this explains further.

And if you’d like to see a full list of all of our healing tools and gifts, this is where to find it. Because any of them make thoughtful, supportive and gentle holiday gifts for those working hard to heal.