Amanda Coggin has lived some lives. She currently lives in The Netherlands after living in the Bay Area of California for almost 30 years. This blog is a series of writings from her thirties and forties as she healed through the traumatic loss of her boyfriend to suicide, the significant life event that brought her to her knees. What helped heal her back to wholeness? Long-term Buddhist meditation (Vipassana), Al-Anon 12-step recovery, yoga, grief groups, diving into death and dying, living life to its fullest, connecting to community, training at a Buddhist hospice house (Zen Hospice Project) as a bedside caregiver, training as a hospital chaplain at UCSF where she worked as an adukt & pediatric chaplain for 10 years, trained in psychedelic-facilitated therapy at UC Berkeley, choosing to have a child, healing intergenerational trauma, becoming trauma-informed, being of service to others, talking about it, talking some more, and writing through her grief. A seven foot backpacker friend while she backpacked through Asia alone at the age of 25 once said to her, "Every day's a school day." Make the most of those school days and try to heal that which stifles you. It will benefit the world.
