Book Release

Over the course of 30 days, you create a memoire to pass down from generation to generation. My mom passed away seven years ago, so her journal has all these little stories about her so that when my grandchildren are older, they have information about their great grandmother. Before losing my mother, I viewed death in a totally different way. Years of panic attacks and anxiety out of nowhere left me with dry heaves, cold sweats, and my throat would close as if my tongue was swelling. I was diagnosed with depression, anxiety, and post traumatic stress syndrome. I was forced to confront issues I thought I’d dealt with years ago. Amid it all, my mother became very sick with pneumonia. A few days later, we were told it was Stage IV Lung Cancer. I remember exactly where I was when I got the call in April. I remember going into defense mode. I needed to protect my mother and make sure she got the care she needed.  I listened closely to every word the doctors said about what was going on and repeated it back to them to make sure I was hearing them correctly. My mother’s fight was short, and she left this world on June 29, 2014, at 2:11 a.m. Her cancer was extremely aggressive, but she was so strong. I feel lucky to have been able to be with her the night and day before she passed. I didn’t want her to miss an opportunity to see how deeply she was loved. We did have a conversation that when she left this earth, she would show me signs that she was around. She smiled and said she would send me “jokes.” I love good practical jokes, but I wasn’t sure how I would feel about a practical joke from the other side. Her comment made me giggle  and she knew I needed to laugh. We were able to bring her home where she could continue her final journey to the other side. I wasn’t with my mother when she passed at 2:11 a.m. I was home watching my grandson when I got the call early in the morning from my sister. As I drove up to my mother’s home around 2:30p.m. in the morning a strong scent of flowers came through the open windows of my jeep. I knew this was a sign from her. I smiled and said, “I love you mom.” Not ten seconds later, a wafting stench of pasture came and then quickly left, and the scent of flowers surrounded me once again. One of my mom’s favorite sayings suddenly popped into my head. “You got me, you little shit,” I thought. Her sense of humor and her timely practical joke helped ease me when I most needed it. When I arrived, my mom was still in her bed with some flowers in her hands. I dropped my purse and glasses and went to her side. I leaned in and whispered to her. As I spoke to her, I felt it was important to give her a message for my daughter’s boyfriend who had chosen to leave this world a few years before. “Tell him I’m not mad at him anymore and I forgive him,” I whispered, my voice quivering.It just felt important to have her relay this message. I kissed her cheek, rubbed her hands, and sang in a whisper, “You Are My Sunshine.” This was a song my grandmother always sang to me, one that I sang to my kids and grandkids, and my children now sing to their children. The song always made me feel loved and at home, so what better thing to sing or say to my mother as we waited for the funeral home to come and take her body, once full of life, away.  Soon after she passed, I started seeing “You Are My Sunshine” everywhere. Pillows, wall hangings, jewelry, coffee cups, and more, all displayed the words I treasured. The saying was making a comeback in the market! I credit that to my mom, one of the best advertising reps in our area. I also started waking up at 2:11a.m. I wondered why she would wake me up at the exact time of her death. I realized a few months later this was her new time of birth into her new chapter. Grieving and missing my mom was such a roller coaster of emotions, but it was a pivotal event that changed my thoughts on death forever. One day, I went to a group reading that my friend, Denise, was hosting in her home. One of my daughters came with me. She was the one who had lost her boyfriend to suicide. My hope was that she’d find some closure and peace. The very first thing this medium said was, “You Are My Sunshine.”  “Are you freaking kidding me?” I thought. Mom came through so strongly and gave both my daughter and me peace. After the reading was finished, the medium came to me. “You know that Spirit has plans for you,” she said. I’d never met this woman before, yet she described my anxiety attacks, the feeling of my throat closing – everything. She advised me to either open up to Spirit or close it down. Honestly, where I was emotionally, if I didn’t open or close it, the anxiety attacks would worsen. After coming home, I spoke with my husband about my experience, and I decided to have several conversations with God. This was so foreign to me. God chose me to do this, and He kept lining people up in my path, leading me where I needed to go. Signs popped up everywhere and once I realized my doubt and placed it in His hands, the depression was gone. The anxiety was gone. Where once the sound of a ticking clock drove me out of my skin, they no longer bothered me. For the first time in my life, I understood my purpose.  It was not for me to question when I was being led. It was for me to follow the path. More than 5 years later, having done readings for thousands of people, connecting to Spirit, and listening to my guides, I have been pushed to mentor people to open up to their God given gifts. I am helping others release negative thoughts around them, freeing themselves from anxiety and depression.  I have always known I’d write books. One of my first mentors mentioned writing a book and she brought it up several times. Even as a child, I knew I would write. I even had a pen name, Diane Castle. Diane is my middle name, and I grew up in Greencastle, PA. I’ve started several books over the years, but none really came together. Now that death is a totally different understanding process for me, I gathered the things that have consistently come up in readings from Spirit, God, and my clients, and put together the 30-day remembrance book, My Head Knows: *But my Heart Still Hurts – A 30-Day Grief Recovery Journal. It’s about how to walk yourself through from memories to grief back to memories. So many people tell me they are afraid they will forget. My answer has always been to journal it. All my students will tell you that I push journaling and setting intentions. My prayer is that this book will help you find your new normal. It doesn’t get easier because you are without someone you cared about. You find your new way to live with their memory surrounding you, a way to speak to them every day. Journal signs, dreams, songs, whatever moves you through the pain of loss to remember the legacy they left instilled in you. So, the intention of this book is to help you release the grief memories while journaling your memories. This will be a letter to your loved one.  Click here to order