Letting Go

One of the hardest lessons of life might be learning to let go.

Letting go of past relationships, old jobs, old romances, beloved pets and, of course, people when they die. Letting go of parts of ourselves that we have outgrown or which naturally cede to create space for the new.

Letting go of good health is difficult. Particularly if there is no hope of return to the good health of old.

If we want to stay adventurous, if we want to enjoy life and be filled with joy, if we want to overcome the anger that sometimes accompanies loss - that sense that something has gone wrong and can never be put right again - then we must learn to accommodate our losses. To live alongside them with as much acceptance and good humour as we can.

We can miss something forever, and often we do, yet there is always joy, always. There is love and beauty when you look for it. It’s only that sometimes life asks us to look somewhere new for it.

The new places where joy lives are often smaller and more quiet. I still have not lost the habit of being in a bookshop and seeing a book that my father in law would love and being sorry that he has gone and so has missed it. Sometimes I read or listen to things on his behalf, buoyed by the idea of the conversation we would have had about it afterwards. I don’t get to talk to him any more, but I do get to think of him often and wonder what he would have thought of all of the things that are happening now.

Of course, one day we too will be gone and we will have to find a way to let go of our lives as graciously as possible. This is not morbid, it is a simple fact of life. Buddhists teach a type of meditation where you imagine your own death. It is a powerful thing to acknowledge that impermanence, but more than that it is a joyful act, because it reminds us that life is so beautiful and brief, why waste it on what is not truly important.

As is so often the case, nature shows us the way: tides come in and out, washing the beach clean as they do so, flowers bloom and fade, trees grow green all summer and then fade in a blaze of glory.

Let go of the old and embrace the new without regret. Try to not hold onto life too tightly, you cannot save everything and nor would you really want to, since some of the best things you have are here because something else was gone. Childhood opens into lively teenage freedom, youth mellows towards middle aged wisdom, wild days mature into the joys of mother/fatherhood.

One day we will have to let go of life completely, and who knows what adventures begin then.

Sarah x

Everything is Relative

Comparison is the uncle and aunt of all misery.

We know we shouldn’t compare our insides to other people’s outsides, because what people project about themselves in social situations and on social media does not paint the whole picture. Mental health struggles are not usually visible from the outside and we never know what someone else is going through.

More insidious than that kind of comparison though, is constant comparison with yourself. The habit of always comparing yourself to who you would be if you were perfect.

Things you know, but forget:

• The best grade you ever got at school does not define you any more than the time you failed that exam. It might have felt better or worse in the moment, but it didn’t define who you are.

• Nobody ever fell in love or into friendship with you because you once ran a marathon in 2 hours 30. Achieving targets can feel wonderful, but they don’t define you. And never hitting that speed again won’t make you a failure.

• Your messy home does not tell the world anything about who you are or what you have to give. Some people like tidy; others like mess; get over it.

• Everyone else has forgotten that silly thing you said last week. In the midst of all the great stuff you say, it was nothing to anyone but you.

Some days are for climbing mountains; others are for scrolling through social media in your pyjamas. Lighten up. Take a breath. Learn to respect the ebb and flow of your own body. Some days are for expanding, growing, achieving; other days are for quiet reflection, pottering and not getting much ‘done’.

Perhaps, in fact, one depends upon the other?

If you’re always pushing yourself on days when you should be pottering, then you never replenish your energy to really go for it on the expansive days … And if you never let yourself go for it, climb the mountain, follow new leads, run a little bit faster, then you won’t appreciate the peaceful cadence of a duvet day.

Compassion, not comparison. Let your outsides reflect what is going on inside. And in so doing, teach your beloveds to do the same. How might we all be happier and healthier then.

Sarah x

Grief

Grief is the process between losing and learning to live with that loss.

The harder you loved, the harder you’ll grieve.

Those of us who are not in the denial game want to feel this loss and to hold it close, so that its blade can cut. When those wounds become scars, they are felt reminders of the amount of our loss and the love that remains.

You can grieve a death, an ending, something you realise you never had (a parents’ full support, say, or understanding from a partner). Loss comes always and everywhere. If we never lost anything we would never gain anything new: every new step requires that we leave the last footprint behind.

Beware those who dance around their grief with busyness and denial. The grief is there, but it is not being processed. This is a like a cupboard full of junk that you keep dancing past, the cupboard stays full of junk. One day, when they try to shove that latest piece of crap in there, the door won’t shut any more and the whole messy lot of it comes tumbling out at once. This might look like ill health or even breakdown.

Beware those who give a time limit for grief. Your grief belongs to you. Nobody has the right to dictate to you how much you should be feeling it, how you express it or how long it should take.

How the hell would they know what you are feeling and what you need?! You barely know yourself and you are living it. Have you noticed that the ones who tell us how to do something are often the very same ones shoving all that rubbish into that cupboard and tap-dancing by it every day singing, “Nothing to see here”

Grief is love in absentia.

After a time you realise that the love goes on, that it is alive. The person has gone, but the love remains.

For those grieving something they did not have, a sober mother or a kind dad, say, the love becomes what you hold for yourself. You are grown now and you are learning how to love yourself in the way that they could not. There is peace in that process, and the quietness of heart that comes with forgiveness.

For those grieving the end of a relationship, the love shows up in the gratitude you have for the children you made together or in your capacity to remember past times of joy.

We need to grieve better and we need to acknowledge our losses with our friends and beloveds. Only then will we get better at allowing the process in ourselves; only then will we become more patient and generous as we travel alongside a friend moving through theirs; only then can we help our children to understand and move through their own losses and sadnesses.

Sarah x