Welcome to the February edition of Tips and Topics.

In SAVVY, It is six years since I lost my wife. In this update on my grief process, I have broadened what I have learned about Work, Love and Play. In SAVVY Tips I apply these to not just the loss of a loved one by death, but loss by divorce or any love partnership break-up.

In SKILLS, Tips on where to start after a death, divorce or breakup. Job 1 is doing the work to love yourself and know how to live alone. Once you are ready to date, caution about looking for love in all the wrong places... tips about dating apps.

In SOUL, I embrace my retirement and the Triad of Fulfillment, the US Surgeon General’s parting prescription. Dr. Vivek Hallegere Murthy, the 19th & 21st Surgeon General of the United States, announced “My Parting Prescription for America” on January 7, 2025.

Six years ago I announced “I lost my wife February 23, 2019.” Each February, in the SOUL section of Tips and Topics I have updated readers on my grief process.

If you are interested in tracking that, you can go to the Tips and Topics website. On the right-hand side, access the February SOUL section for each year since 2019.

In the February 2021 and February 2022 SOUL sections, I organized some thoughts under the headings of Work, Love and Play. This month, I am not only updating you on my grief process, but broadening Tips in SAVVY and SKILLS to apply to the loss of a loved one by death, but also loss by divorce or any love partnership break-up.

Tip 1

Work has light and dark sides in what it means for different people.

In February 2022’s SOUL section, I wrote that “I am focused now on who we are as people and professionals behind the work we do – especially in behavioral health and healthcare in general, where who we are is what counts and affects the people we serve more potently than what we do.”

I still believe that and even more so now. Being 99% retired, I have had time to reflect more on whom I was behind the work I did in a busy career. In the last 25 years of my career, there seemed little time to ponder the "me behind the work" because my commute was in an airplane and my “office” was a conference or workshop venue.

• The “light” side of my work was that my training and consulting seemed to be effective, because (a) attendees overwhelmingly told me that and (b) I got invited back many times to present again. Yes, that feedback filled self-esteem, and other needs for meaning and purpose. But for me, I have come to understand the dark side of work.

• The “dark” side for anyone’s work can be that it is the only source of self-esteem, feelings of self-worth, getting love and attention and avoidance of being alone and facing oneself.

With the death of a loved one or facing aloneness and maybe loneliness from a divorce or breakup, it is easy to use work as the distraction or salve. To avoid looking at the “you behind the work” doesn’t make any problems go away. It just deepens dependence on a coping strategy that delays a more joyous and satisfying work life.

Tip 2

Love is a universal human need that is best contemplated before rushing into a new relationship.

When my wife passed suddenly after 46 years of the only marriage I had ever experienced, I was alone and didn’t want to rush into any primary partnership or marriage. That afforded me time to look introspectively to illuminate who I am and what I want. In fact, after such a long marriage that like all partnerships, had wonderful and woeful periods, there was a lot of material and memories to guide that introspective look.

• Who was I and how was I showing up in the marriage and relationship?

• What would I want in any new partnership that happened along?

I met a man a few years back who like me, had lost his wife suddenly. He was already divorced from a brief marriage into which he had rushed to quell his loneliness. He was now in another unsatisfactory relationship that was not going well, and was afraid this relationship too would break up and that he would again be alone.

Some honest self-reflection, even with some professional help, would have served him well to guide his choices in the dating world.

Tip 3

Like Work and Love, Play can be different for each person. Consider what “Play” is for you.

As I said in January 2022’s SOUL section, “if anything or anyone doesn’t bring joy to my life and doesn’t think I am a joy in their life, it doesn’t deserve my time or energy. So I’m still having fun monitoring my ‘joy’ meter.” Actually I use the "joy meter" in all aspects of my life, but especially when it comes to Play.

With the grief of a death, divorce or a breakup, Play doesn’t come easy. Like Work there can be a “light” and “dark” side.

• The “light” side is when you identify what brings you joy or peace or relaxation and use that to move you a little higher on the emotional, feeling-better scale.

• The “dark” side is when you use alcohol or other drugs, gambling, shopping, sex or TV and screens to numb yourself and avoid your pain.

Take the time to contemplate what kind of Play works to help you progress towards joy, peace and serenity. There’s no rush to Play, but your healthy version of it goes a long way to advance healing.

SKILLS

Here are some SKILLS Tips to get started on after a death, divorce or breakup.

Tip 1

Examine yourself as “I” not “we.” Reflect on who you are and what you want in a partner.

It took me a year or more to catch myself always answering “We...” to questions about where I lived and for how long; where I had traveled and visited; or what cars I have had before, etc. I still thought about myself as a couple rather than as "me" on where had I lived, visited or what cars I owned.

There’s nothing wrong with that in the initial period of loss. But I have come to see that the “couple” mindset delayed addressing my aloneness and that now I was in charge of who I am as an individual and what I want for me to be happy, not “us.”

• For example, a 12 year-old girl comes home from school to find her mother drunk and the house in disarray. She puts her mother to bed and tidies up the house; takes care of her two younger siblings; and starts preparing dinner. Friends say “Come out to play” and she says “I can’t, I have to take care of my brother and sister and wait for my father to come home."

• Father comes home and praises her with, “What would I do without you? You are Daddy’s right-hand helper. I love you so much for all you do.” That girl learns that her self-esteem and love is built on denying her own needs ("I can’t come out to play") and taking care of others’ needs (Putting her addicted mother to bed, tidying up the house, caring for siblings and cooking dinner).

• She grows up and finds herself married to a man who can’t keep a job because he drinks all the time and misses work. She manages the family finances.

• She matched perfectly with someone who required her to deny her own needs and take care of others. She finally divorces but doesn’t recognize or address her childhood woundings and shaping. One year later, guess who she is married to... another man with addiction who again requires her to put aside her own needs and take care of others.

With examination before the breakup (with professional help if necessary); or after the loss, you can know who you are and what you want for yourself or a partnership.

• Be aware of what self-defeating, self-talk or woundings you bring to a potential relationship. This can pave the way for dating someone who matches the new and improved you, not the wounded you.

• Any unexamined rush to partner up is fraught with the potential for history to repeat itself.

Tip 2

Learn how to love yourself and live alone... don’t look to others to solve your loneliness, anger or fear.

Because I hadn’t dated for 50 years, I chose to make sure I was aware of my vulnerabilities for loneliness, fear or any other uncomfortable feelings and needs. I was trying to prevent “looking for love in all the wrong places.”

This applies to suddenly being alone after death, divorce or a breakup. It is easy to try to fill the void with some new partner. If you haven’t done the work to love yourself and know how to live alone, that is Job 1.

When I was ready to look around on dating apps, I knew I wasn’t desperate to find a new primary partner. What I didn’t know was how to triage through the many profiles of women to find friendship and a travel partner.

Here are a few tips learned from my short time in the hard knocks of field experience on dating apps:

• If the profile shows a portfolio of model quality photos of a gorgeous or handsome person, the photos could be stolen from another’s identity.

• If you reach out just to see what happens and you get a quick response back with compliments that sound like you are a “10” when you know you are not, then your scam alert warning lights should be flashing.

• Even more warning lights if somehow, the person only wants to text and comes up with excuses why they can’t have a phone or video call to get acquainted (e.g., my phone is broken or was stolen; I have a high security job that requires me to have limited calls; I am overseas with poor telephone signals or internet).

• If you ask specifics about what they do or where they live and the answers are vague or even just not addressed... more warning lights.

• If they finally agree to an audio or video call and it has a lot of static and the connection is spotty, unreliable or short-lived so that it is hard to see the person, it’s a scammer.

• I learned to say that “I don’t do texting relationships and unless we have at least a 15-minute audio or video call to get acquainted there’s no need to pursue contact, so have a nice day.”

If you are in doubt about how well you have done Job 1 and not sure about dating... don’t.

SOUL

I have chosen to embrace my retirement from the paid workforce. With the rapid changes initiated by the new Trump administration, many Federal employees are being offered retirement that they have not sought or even want.

One person who is not retiring, but is moving on is Dr. Vivek Hallegere Murthy, the 19th & 21st Surgeon General of the United States, Vice Admiral, United States Public Health. Dr. Murthy announced “My Parting Prescription for America” on January 7, 2025. You can read a summary of his parting prescription, “Surgeon General Drafts One Last Prescription.”

Retirement means different things for different people.

• For some of my childhood friends, it means what I am doing: leaving the paid workforce and re-ordering priorities to focus on exercise, fun travel, new relationships and experiences that I didn’t have or make time for when actively working.

• When she was able to detach from that expectation and accept that she was still a successful, good person even if she never wins a Grand Slam, this freed her up to actually win.

• For others, it is continuing their life’s career as a physician for example, albeit with diminished hours yet still very much in the workforce.

Whatever is your path as a worker nowhere near retirement or as someone doing your version of retirement, Dr. Murthy is “prescribing” what he calls the “triad of fulfillment” that he believes lies at the heart of health and happiness:

• Relationships

• Service

• Purpose

For now, I continue to write Tips and Topics every month for 22 years to build and give back to my behavioral health community. It is fulfilling to me to maintain relationships in a 50 year career, and meet my needs for service and purpose.

If you are reading this, you are in the Tips and Topics community. I remind you that you can Search 22 years of archives at the Tips and Topics website and enter a topic in the “Search Blog” box at the top right of the Homepage.

If you know others who you think would appreciate being part of the Tips and Topics community also, invite them to sign up where it says “Sign Up Now!” at the top of the page. Don’t sign up for them. I don’t want them to feel like me when I get newsletters I am not interested in and have to Unsubscribe when I never subscribed in the first place.

Thanks for being part of my community and contributing to my Triad of Fulfillment.

UNTIL NEXT TIME

Thank you for joining us this month. See you in late March.

David