If you’re new to the Pod, my name is Laura and I’m a certified Feng Shui Practitioner, Curator and Stylist for you and your Space. Join me and my guests for conversations around lifestyle and wellness with a focus on living and curating our best lives. Subscribe for tips on mindful living! This hybrid Podcast & Newsletter originates on Substack where you can follow me for all the visuals, text and video. The Show is now on video with interview guests along with solo episodes so I encourage you to subscribe and watch on Substack and YouTube . For all my other content and services check out my Link-tree . Hello and welcome back to Where Feng Shui Meets Fashion! If you’re new here my name is Laura aka The Feng Shui Lady ®️. I have been mia for a few weeks but I’m back! Since my mother died in February, I have basically been ill. In my mind inexplicably so because I haven’t been sick in so many years that I can’t remember the last time I was sick. It’s been more than 5 years, maybe ten. I can’t say for sure, but suffice it to say that I have a hardy immune system. Being as sick as I have been in recent days has been both humbling and healing. I first fell ill after my mom’s death and service in mid February. It seemed like a common place cold that lasted a couple weeks. Symbolically, I felt like it was my body forcing me to cry, to grieve which on some level I was resisting. I eventually got better and I was finally being social and out in the world when I got sick again on March 24th after a brief but productive social period. For the most part, I have been sick since February and it’s forced me to look within and do some shadow work. With round 2 of my illness, I lost my voice for the first couple days then it turned into a full blown flu that took me out and would not let me go. I would pass out on the couch with a box of Kleenex for no reason. I slept for days and days and started to wonder if I would ever get better. It was also in my chest this time with a painful relentless cough that left me gasping for air in the middle of the night. I had all these plans and I couldn’t show up for any of them. It’s like the universe gave me a non negotiable time out. It got so bad I finally went to Urgent Care to see if I had Covid but the line was so long and I got there close to closing so they couldn’t see me. By The next morning, I finally woke up feeling human again! Of course Mercury just went direct so I guess my time out is over! The cough is still hanging out but I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. I no longer feel like I’m at death’s door begging for mercy. I have basically been self quarantined because I didn’t want to spread whatever I had and quite honestly I would get dizzy just trying to do little things like feed myself. Thank God for Grubhub. I’m one of those people who attributes everything medical to something emotional or spiritual. Think Louise Hay… She would say my initial cold represented “ Too much going on at once. Mental confusion, disorder. Small hurts…” As for the persistent cough, Louise would say it represents “A desire to bark at the world! See me! Listen to me!” Yep, all that rings true. Following my mother’s passing, I was navigating my father and brother’s grief, and spending time in my childhood home with them. I slept in my childhood bedroom which my mother had long since taken over. My parents have slept in separate bedrooms for the last decade. My brother has been living with them for over a decade as well. We are Latin so it’s not as weird as it sounds. While I was staying at my family home, my father, brother and I were navigating all the details and legalities of death. Death certificates, changing banking and billing information, updating our family trust, life insurance policies blah, blah, blah. The loose ends seem endless. I was mostly pretty numb. I was present to cook for the men in my family and be the new matriarch. I was there to show them how to do laundry. I cooked and made it known we would be eating in the dining room…. I was the new matriarch. I cried at the service because seeing your mother’s dead body is jarring and macabre. That said, overall I did not feel grief stricken. My biggest concern has been my dad and how sad and fragile he is. He’s sort of lost without her (like a Stockholm Syndrome survivor). I can tell he doesn’t want to hang around much longer. He really misses her even the yelling and the insults. They were pretty toxic. My mom had a sharp tongue and a short fuse. I never understood their dynamic. I think it’s why I have not married. I remember as a child thinking if this is love, I’ll take a pass. My dad and I are close now. It’s a relationship that was built over time and largely in my adult years because my dad traveled a lot for business during my childhood. He was lovely but busy and far away. My mother and I fought it out during the times when my father was not around. When he was around, I served as a point of contention
