Our dog, Oslo, died one year ago. He was our first dog and a central force in our family. 🦮

As anyone who has lost a beloved pet knows, the grief can be surprisingly strong and perplexingly long-lasting.

The whole Moe fam wanted to get a new puppy right away, but I stood my ground despite their pleas earning me the Mean Mom moniker.

Of course, I also thought it would be fun to have a little bouncing bundle of joy delighting and uniting us for a common good.

But I recognized what we really wanted was to stop feeling so sad.

It was unsettling when tears would well in the back of our eyes unexpectedly, or we’d get choked up at the mere mention of his name.

We felt empty without Oslo greeting us at the door, or meandering around the house, tags jingling.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years of teaching energy management tools, it’s that we want to lean into uncomfortable feelings, not hide from them or wish them away.

Does this mean I wanted my family and me to wallow in our grief? Absolutely not.

But I also didn’t want us to bypass these difficult emotions by focusing on a new dog.

When we distract ourselves from painful or uncomfortable emotions, they eventually get buried only to resurface some other way and time – sometimes, so much further in the future, we can’t connect the dots back to their origin.

Have you ever overacted to something and wondered, “Wow, why am I freaking out about this?”

Or maybe you aren’t even aware of your intense response, but those around you are. “Stay clear, Dad's on a rampage,” they might say.

This is why it’s so important we learn how to process our emotions.

When we keep our energy moving and clear, it doesn’t build up, stagnate, or weigh us down.

We are freed from the burden of carrying around loads of emotional baggage.

Processing our emotions is one of the fastest ways to create healthier relationships and increase our overall life satisfaction.

If you’d like to learn how to do just this, join the waitlist for my Energy Management Bootcamp coming this summer!

PS After eight months, we felt healed enough from our grieving and ready to welcome a new dog into our home.

Because we weren’t expecting Milo to fill the void Oslo left when he passed, (either consciously or unconsciously), we’ve been able to appreciate this new being for his uniqueness and love him as much, just differently.