I should have known when I reached for the Cheerios box at 1:00 AM that I was feeling an anxious anticipation.I flipped through Peacock and Netflix, MSNBC and Magnolia while I hand-fed my dog the stale Cheerios that escaped from each fist full I tossed in my mouth.
My son and I got back home late on Sunday night after two days at his hockey tournament and I couldn’t bring myself to go straight to bed.
Just one day more until the first day of school.
Whether that first day falls on the
3rd or the 8th of September or any day in between, it will always be the first day of school when it happened.
That's the day my husband died.
In my work as a coach, I teach my clients to nurture the parts of themselves that hide behind beliefs that don't serve them anymore.
The goal is to tend to the hurt, to reframe what scares us, and to heal the old wounds that fuel our resistance to change and growth - which we now desire.
But since my husband’s death, I’ve often been comforted by the fact that there are parts of us that will remain forever inconsolable.
Many of you already know that.
You know that there are parts that when touched, burst with mourning.
I tell the story of that first day of school in 2015 in my book, so I won’t tell it here, but suffice it to say that as much courage and growth and love my kids and I have embodied over the past nine years, there will always be inconsolable parts.
A tender part of me clings to an old belief.
That part believes that if I am good enough I can keep my family safe, healthy, happy, together. A part of me that believes that I wasn't enough, that I failed in the job I had grown up as a child performing so well. That part believes that my children are less than too, because I alone am not enough to heal the wounds I believe they carry, for them.
There are so many ways this is not true, of course. So many holes in that belief.
But when my grief shows up - I don't rush to fill that empty space too quickly - with my hard-won wisdom, my new beliefs.I just let her feel sad. Let her hang out in the emptiness left behind in a belief she's held since childhood which wasn't true, still isn’t and won’t ever be.
For those of you feel the anxious anticipation of past endings, or feel the fear of uncertainty as you step into a new season of life - be reminded that you don't have to rush to fill that empty space.What you might like is a to hold a space for it. Or ask for someone to hold that space with you, before it slips away. I'm here for that too, all you need to do is reach out and I'd be honored to do just that.
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