I suspect that many people opening this blog may be thinking that I’m going to write something about loss, and I am, but not necessarily about the loss of a person. So bear with me whilst I explain why I wanted to write this today, as it isn’t the post is I meant to write this evening.
This post was inspired by the re-emergence in my life of a giant Eeyore that my sister brought me when my mother in law sadly passed away. He’s almost the same size as me and gave me huge comfort on my first encounter with significant grief. Then my sister passed away unexpectedly and he came to represent a lot of loss I couldn’t process. That was over 15 years ago, and today he has finally come out of the attic to live under my desk, regaining his position of comforter. I’m not over what happened to my sister, but I’ve finally reached a place where the things that I associate most strongly with her are things I want in my life, rather than being a trigger for trauma. How does this connect to a post about wider emotional processing? It struck me when he gained his new position that we make time and allow for grief about the big things, but the need to go through similar, shorter, processes for other scenarios is seldom acknowledged.
I’ve posted before about how important it is to celebrate, both the big and the small things, and today has made me think about how the converse is probably true, do we need to acknowledge and make room for grief and mourning in response to less dramatic changes in our lives? Often we are told to ‘buck up’ or ‘pull it together’ but for specific, delineated time frames, should we actually just hand each other a box of tissues and some ice cream and accept the benefits of a good wallow?
I think there is a certain amount of social acceptance of loss related to people and the grief associated with it. It strikes me, however, there is much less acceptance of loss related to other things. Loss that occurs to all of us during our lives and can impact how we see ourselves or the world. Missing out on our dream job, drifting from a close friendship, or even the loss of a favourite pair of shoes. These things may sound small, but variations of them will impact us all, and if we save permission to feel sad and grieve only for the big things we may not deal well with the impact of routine losses that end up hitting us just as hard because we’ve ignored processing them. So in contrast to celebration, I thought I would talk about the moments that I consider ‘wallow worthy’ and encourage us all to allow space for a little mourning.
Mourn a vision of the future that will no longer be
In my post about losing my sister I talk about the loss of the idea of being a mother and developing that new family unit. There are plenty of other ways this form of loss can hit however, all of which are still valid.
There are many things in life that we can sometimes take for granted when we are younger. The fact that we will find Mr/Mrs/They right and will have companionship. That we will have a permanent home that we enjoy. That we will have a sense of community and a way to express ourselves. Things that are just assumed will happen at some point, but in some cases, and for some people, never quite arrive. It doesn’t mean that not having those things will make you unhappy. I know many people who are content without some or all of those things. That doesn’t mean, howver, that there won’t be moments, days, or even weeks, where you don’t mourn the fact that some things that are just considered ‘a given’ haven’t been given to you. Contentment does not rule out a sense of loss at what might have been and it is OK to recognise that and mourn it for a while, despite acknowledging that you are still content with your lot. In fact, going through the acknowledgement and mourning process may be the only way that you truly come to terms with the reality of your life.
Mourn the loss of your sense of identity
There are numerous points in our lives when we change how we view ourselves. When you become parents and leave behind a phase when you can focus entirely on yourself. When you retire, and have to discover who you are when you no longer have the structure and identity of yourself as part of an organisation by which to define yourself. There are many reasons why your sense of identity could shift, and many of them are actually positive. The positive direction of travel may not however mean that you don’t mourn and miss who you were before. In fact, this is one where acknowledging the change may be a really important health and wellbeing piece to ensure success in your future identity.
We all know those people who cling tightly to who they were in their twenties, even though decades have passed, or the people that retire who can never really step away from their old place of work. Denying that our identities are rooted in both time and place, and that letting those go requires a level of emotional processing, can lead to less healthy long term outcomes. This one can be especially tricky as we are often expected to enter new phases of our lives with unconditional joy, and being sad or worried about what you are leaving behind is often taboo. It is essential to acknowledge the complex emotions linked to these transitions however, in order to make them well.
Mourn the loss of an aspiration unfulfilled
There is never enough time. Long and short, time is a limiting factor. You may not be able to get onto that PhD that spoke to you, write the book you’ve been talking about down the pub for years, or give a key note speech at a conference. Aspirations are tangible goals that are possible to achieve, and therefore it can sometimes hit even harder when you stop to reflect 20 years on and you haven’t managed to tick a box on your list that you’ve been hanging onto for years.
There are all kinds of reasons why an aspiration may not occur. Sometimes, life takes us in a different direction. Sometimes, you don’t manage to make the time or succeed in the steps that lead up to the final goal end point. The fact that it should be achievable can make the lack of fulfillment hurt even more. It can often feel within reach, and yet keep slipping away.
Without being able to reflect, and experience the emotion linked to the loss, it can be challenging to decide if the aspiration is still important enough that it is worth trying to achieve. Without looking into the face of it and mourning how the loss feels, you can’t decide how much you are invested in the outcome. Feeling the loss is crucial in determining fresh priorities for the future.
Mourn the loss of a dream
For me, the difference between a dream and an aspiration is the likelihood of it happening. Dreams are less based in reality. There is often not a tangible 10 step plan you are following to get from point A to point B. It doesn’t mean that you will be any less emotionally invested in them. In fact, we are often more invested because we are aware of the challenge that dream will face from others.
I’ve known multiple people who were exceptional dancers who had their dreams of dancing professionally taken away by injury. I’ve known wonderful writers, who have given up on their dreams because they had families to support and the jobs required to do so meant they let go of their dreams to focus on their reality.
Dreams also form a part of self identity, and letting go of a dream can, therefore, cause us to be confronted with the reality of who we are and what we can actually achieve. This process can be incredibly painful and letting go of that hope for the future requires going through a grief process. People will often say that you should just get a new dream, but to actually do that requires you to truly process the loss of the old. So, no matter how much the dream felt like a work of fiction, its removal is something that needs grounding in emotional processing in order to move forward.
Mourn the loss of an ideal
This one I find particular interesting at the moment. I work for an organisation I love, but because of system changes outside of any of our control, it no longer feels like the place that I have loved and been invested in for over 2 decades of my life. It is still there, but feels tarnished somehow. The same can happen with people you love and respect. There is, after all, the famous saying that you shouldn’t meet your idols, and that is often because they often won’t live up to the ideal we have set for them.
I still love the place I work, but I am seeing it through a lens right now where I am confronted with sides of it that don’t look the same now I have removed my rose tinted glasses. It doesn’t mean it’s bad, it just means that to be able to continue to work there and maintain my commitment, I need to acknowledge the difference and mourn the loss of the ideal I used to hold.
There are so many examples of this right now, from how I feel about the political scenario in the US, to the disappointment I experience at the reported behaviours of some of my favourite writers or directors. It does no one any good to pretend that the complexity of the world do not exist, but I sometimes mourn the loss of my naivety. It may that being more enlightened is a good thing, but a period of mourning to move on is still required to help me process and plan for my new reality.
Mourn the loss of an opportunity
This is one I’ve talked about before, in talking about my process for handling failure whether linked to papers, grants, or other things. It is not possible to be 100% successful, in fact within the failure is the learning that is so important to succeeding in your eventual outcomes. I’d be lying if I said that failure is fun though. Even with a growth mindset, where you embrace the positivity of failure, it can still get to you.
I allow myself a short defined period of mourning and wallowing when I am confronted with failure, in order to allow me to take the next step bravely. This kind of mourning of the loss of opportunity can link to everything from job applications, to trying to get tickets to Glastonbury. You may learn from the process to be able to increase your chances of future success, but if you don’t process the failure you may be too disappointed to try again or approach the next chance with the learning necessary to increase subsequent chances.
For me, a great example of this is when I need to respond to reviewers about a paper. If I haven’t stepped away from the reviewers comments in order to just mourn and be irritated in response to their criticism, when I come back I will respond from that emotional space instead of from one of balanced logic. This is likely to make the response less well balanced, and possibly lead to additional unnecessary failure. Allow myself 48 hours to step away and wallow however, and I’m good to go with the next step.
Mourn the loss of a connection
Someone recently said to me that friendships are for a season, and it’s really stuck with me. My life has diverted substantially from the lives that some of my close friends lead. They have gone on to have families, which are understandably a large focus of their time. There are parts of their lives and conversations linked to their day to day realities that I simply can’t partake in. When I have been surrounded by a group of friends who are all young mothers, I simply don’t have the context to discuss the best cream to deal with nappy rash or the latest school communication on head lice. You therefore become less and less present within their lives.
They also probably don’t understand my joy at getting 5000 words down for my book on a weekend, or how excited I’ve been to record a specific podcast. It’s not that I love them any less, or they me, we’ve just lost some of the grounds for connection that we previously had.
It’s OK to feel sad and mourn the change, but it is part of life, and so acknowledging the way you feel is important, otherwise it can actually get in the way of friendships and lead to them ending when they could otherwise continue, just in a different form.
I have to be honest here, and say I have been with the amazing Mr Girlymicro for over 20 years so I don’t have good experience, but I imagine the same is true with dating and other forms of connectivity. To develop a new type of connection, you need to acknowledge the loss/change of the old, in order to build new foundations.
Not all loss is big but it’s OK to recognise what it means and why before you move on
Many of the things I’ve talked about are big things, but I just want to throw in a call here for being able to grieve for the loss of the little things (in a proportionate little way). The loss of you favourite dress because it has finally fallen to pieces through excess use, or because someone down the pub spilled red wine all over it. In my case, often the loss of a favourite teapot or piece of china, that holds emotional meaning for me and I’ve dropped on the floor.
Not everything has to be big. Some days, it’s OK to acknowledge that something sucks, and spend the time it takes to watch a weepy movie to help you process it. I embrace the fact that we support each other by trying to cheer each other up, especially as these mourning periods should have a time limit, but we should also allow a certain amount of ‘wallow window’ to let people truly process in order to make the most out of their lives.
Mr Girlymicro and I call this visiting the pit of despair. The pit of despair is filled with cushions, tea, and chocolate, but not so comfortable that you can move in there. So allow yourself to visit the pit when you need to, but make sure you keep the rope ladder to hand for when you need to climb out. It is a place to visit and come out renewed, not to exist within.
All opinions in this blog are my own
Girlymicro 