Recently I was listening to a podcast interview with an entrepreneur who made an offhand comment that stopped me in my tracks – and not in a good way. When asked about what they wish they’d done differently, the entrepreneur said something like: ‘Everything I’ve done has led me to where I am now, so I’m happy I went through all that struggle.’ For me, this was jarring. As much as I can see where they were coming from, I’m not a massive fan of the tendency to revise history through a glittery lens of positivity.
Let me explain.
(Photo by Taylor Kopel on Unsplash)
I’ve been laid off three times in my working life, and every single time I ended up somewhere better – but that doesn’t mean I now look back on job losses as pleasant experiences. It was only in hindsight that I could see how, each time, I had transformed my working life – but still, that doesn’t erase the experience of grief, turmoil and sense of betrayal I went through in the wake of getting that devastating news from my employers. Yes, I’m thankful I ended up self-employed, which suits me beautifully, and gave me the space to launch One Grounded Angel, however I don’t imagine I’ll ever feel happy that I went through those crappy experiences.
I’m sharing this because I’ve noticed that, with the best of intentions, people are often very eager to move us forward into the ‘resurrection’ stage when we’re going through the upheaval of losing something we’ve loved. Do you know what magnified the misery of losing my job? The amount of well-intentioned people insistent on telling me, ‘when one door closes, another one opens!’ or, even worse, ‘everything happens for a reason’ (tip: please, never say this to anyone, ever – it’s incredibly dismissive). But here’s the thing: we can’t get to the better outcome without moving (slowly, usually) through all the ugly emotions first. If you’ve lost something – regardless of whether it happened on your terms or not – there’s a lot of grieving and sorrow and fury that’s important to process before we can find our way to rebuilding something better. Those feelings, of course, tend to fade in significance when we have landed somewhere better, but that doesn’t mean we can pretend they never existed. We can hold two conflicting truths in the same hand: the truth that we’re better off now AND the truth that we wish we hadn’t gone through the experience of loss. (Note: obviously I’m not talking about bereavement here, which is a much more complicated form of loss.)
(Photo by Mimi Thian on Unsplash)
I’m not suggesting we stay sitting in those negative emotions forever, I’m simply saying we can’t devalue them retrospectively.
It also bears remembering that often when we’ve lost something, what we’re also grieving for is the future we had imagined – in my case, it was the career path I had expected to have when I enrolled at journalism school as a determined 18-year-old student. Consider this example: if you’ve had to sell a house, you might be grieving for the loss of the you who was going to grow old in that house. Just because it’s an imagined future doesn’t mean it isn’t painful to lose. And just because you might ending up living somewhere you also love later on, doesn’t make that feeling of loss invalid.
If something you love has ended – a friendship, job, living situation, whatever it is – here are some things to keep in mind:
(Photo by Pawel Czerwinski on Unsplash)
1. You are entitled to your feelings. All of them.
2. You don’t have to rush into something new – in fact, depending on your circumstances, it might be better if you don’t. Taking time to process your emotions might be what you need more.
3. This loss does not define you. Just because things haven’t played out the way you’d hope doesn’t mean you’ve failed.
4. It’s OK if you don’t know what you want to do next, or feel like you don’t know who you are anymore.
5. It’s OK if this loss doesn’t make sense to you right now, or ever. Often when we’re hurting, our rational mind jumps to try and understand why and how it happened, why people acted the way they did, etc, but you may never get answers to these questions – and even if you did, it wouldn’t take away the hurt. Allow yourself to sit in the not-knowingness.
6. You don’t need to run around looking for allies, or for people to be as angry or upset as you are. Your feelings are valid, even though no one else might truly get how you feel.
7. It’s OK to limit contact with people who are uncomfortable with what you’re going through, and don’t know how best to support you. Be a friend to yourself and support yourself instead. And talk to a therapist or healer if you need a non-judgemental ear.