Navigating The Unexpected Grief That Comes After Change.

Life is constant motion. We are part of the ever-expanding universe, which means things are always moving. We live in a series of cyclical patterns that we can count on - Spring & Fall; Day & Night. We fall asleep; we awaken.

In the midst of that harmony, we have also come to expect certain milestones. Things we were promised by our parents, our teachers, and our community. We are born, grow up, have a career and/or family. And at some point, everything comes to an end.

Yet, in our culture, we only seem to focus on the acquisition of things. We are taught early that achievement and productivity are the goals. We strive for whatever milestone is placed in front of us. We're planning our high school courses in junior high and daydreaming of houses and weddings before we get to college.

From the time we can understand words, we’re told that life will unfold in a predictable series of events: school, career, love, marriage, children. Save for a house, save for our children's education, then plan for our retirement.

We're not taught that every milestone we plan for carries the possibility of not arriving on time (or at all), and that when it doesn't, we grieve the life we had built around it.

We're taught productivity and achievement, but not the emotional skills or resilience needed to navigate the grief and disorientation when things don't go as planned. That is what I want to start to address, in what will likely be a series of posts.

Grieving Change

It is expected that we will experience grief when someone dies. We may also understand grief in relation to other big losses in life, like a relationship, a job, or a big move. But what about the more obscure losses?

I spend my days with many people who are in transition. It can look like a student moving into the workforce or a newly single person after years of being part of a couple. We spend our sessions talking about the grief of moving into a new state of being. (Yes, you have planned for this new stage.)

Of course, they are excited for the future. However, many people are also carrying the grief that comes from moving out of a familiar place into the unknown.

An easy example to understand is when our children grow up; we may love who they are and be excited for their future. We may also miss the little person left behind in the transition.

My boys are grown now. I love to see who they are becoming and watching their lives unfold. I also really miss the little boys who would climb on my lap with a book. And the teenager who would flop on my bed just as I settled in with a book to tell me all about his day.

If you happen to be in one of these transitions, notice where your feelings go, and see how transitional grief fits in.

Losing Parts Of Yourself In Transitions

The biggest loss that we (may or may not) notice is our loss of self when it comes to transitions. ‘Who am I?’ is a powerful question, and it’s never fully answered.

We create and discover who we are all the time. We are in a constant state of change, cycling through our seasons.

In my book Thriving in Chaos, I write about the way we understand ourselves in relation to the roles we play and the people around us. When those roles shift, or when the life we were reaching toward turns out to look different from what was expected, it can feel like the ground underneath our identity has collapsed. That feels disorientating, and underneath disorientation, more often than not, is grief.

Grieving Your Past Self

The older we get, the clearer it becomes that we don’t look or move the same way as we used to. It is difficult not to grieve for the 'me' who was stronger, faster, fitter. Especially when things are hard, and we feel like everything is falling apart.

Because we tend to look at life as linear, forward-moving in a straight line, we can miss the cyclical nature of change in our lives.

We see it in nature: each year, the garden can be different. We plant new things. Yet, it is still a garden. It is still growing and changing and yielding and resting.

We can learn a lot about adapting from the garden. While we make our plans in the winter, sketching out where everything will be, sometimes things don’t go to plan. If the cucumbers don't get as big as we were picturing, we still make a good jar of pickles.

The garden isn’t considered a failure because it didn't keep up with all the milestones we planned for it. A different harvest is not a lesser one. Life is like that, too.

Navigating the Change

There are so many transition points we experience in our lives. I could (and likely will) write a whole series looking at each one individually.

Transition points are present in our careers, in our relationships, in our health, and in raising our families. They are the moments when one version of our life ends, and another begins, sometimes by choice and sometimes not. 

And sometimes, it’s the lack of transition that causes us to feel grief. 

What my ‘Boomer’ mom experienced throughout her life is nothing like what I experienced as the generation that followed hers. In her generation, homes were affordable on one income, and jobs were plentiful.

When it was my turn to raise a family, jobs were scarce, so it took longer to be able to buy a house. There was a sense of struggle in achieving the same milestones as our parents' generation. 

Then there is the next generation, who have lived their entire lives in a state of transition.  My millennial son may never be able to buy a house at current prices. That has influenced his decision about having children.

Although there is no one-size-fits-all in navigating change. There are a few things we can anticipate as we go through change, though. Our best laid plans will likely change. Everything takes longer than I think it will. But we can choose to lean into resilience instead and use that to adapt to whatever comes our way. 

If you find yourself going through a life transition, here are a couple of things that may help guide the process (taken from my book: Thriving in Chaos):

Understand Yourself

It can be easy to lose ourselves when our external circumstances are chaotic. When the life we planned starts to look different from what we expected, the question of who we are without those plans can feel destabilizing. 

In the ‘Understanding Yourself’ chapter of Thriving in Chaos, I walk readers through an exercise built around four questions:

What are your roots? 

These are your values, the people around you, your spiritual practice. Your values are what anchor you in who you are and help you withstand the difficult times in life. What are the things that ground you and help you feel safe?

What are your skills? 

These are the characteristics that extend from your character: a good listener, organized, a hard worker. They are the things that make you resilient in a storm.

What are your hopes and dreams?

Culture can often dictate what you should aspire to, but have you ever considered what you want your life to look and feel like? If you could picture a perfect day, what would it include? Do you have time in your life for those things?

What does success look like to you? 

It may look different than what society thinks. Are you making a meaningful impact? As I write in Thriving in Chaos, living a meaningful life is about connecting to something bigger than the constant pursuit of achievement. 

Make Space for What is Happening

Before any of those questions can be answered, the grief you’re feeling needs a name. There are many kinds of grief; understanding which one you are feeling is the best place to start. 

In Thriving in Chaos, I write about disenfranchised grief, which occurs when there is no normalized space for it to be acknowledged. The grief of a milestone that never arrived, or a version of yourself you planned to be by now, often falls into that category. 

Life comes with a mixture of emotions. We all long to feel joy, but we also need to contend with sadness, loneliness, and anger. In therapy, we hold space for our feelings. Which is simply being where you are, in the present moment, without judgment, without trying to fix or hurry past what you are feeling. (It’s a skill that takes practice over time.) 

Once we slow down long enough to acknowledge what we are feeling, we can figure out what to do with it.

For some people, that looks like actual movement: running, biking, yoga. Even stretching, when done with the intention of moving something out of the body, can help. It could look like journaling, connecting with a friend, or talking it out with a therapist.

Start by knowing what it is, so you know what to do with it. Anger may need to move differently than sadness. There is no guidebook for this. You have to get good at knowing how things move in your body.

Live with Intention

The Power of Intention by Wayne Dyer had a profound effect on me when I read it just after my son was born in 2004. This book challenged me to think about how to live in the flow of life rather than checking the boxes of accomplishments.

For me, this meant learning how to live knowing I am not in control of everything that happens in my life. I had a lot of resistance to that, I'm not gonna lie. That was how I learned to be safe in my life. Yet, using my energy to control the variables was pointless. I could never control everything.

I had to shift and focus on what I could control, which was my response. Of course, I still made major decisions, like going back to school and opening my own practice. I also had to learn to be in the process of life as it unfolded. Maybe I liked this book because it challenged the status quo.

As I write in Thriving in Chaos, living in a constant state of striving can leave us perpetually chasing life instead of enjoying it. We may always feel as if we are behind in some way. 

Intention is the antidote to that. The process looks like living in creativity, kindness, beauty, joy, and love. These are natural states of being that can disappear when we are too focused on measuring up. But who decided what we are measuring up to?

Embracing Change

It feels like we need to make a major shift in our world. Imagine if we could live from this idea of intention. Although we may not be able to change the world, we can each begin in our own hearts.

Lean in to whatever change is happening in your life right now. ind yourself in it. Hold space for whatever is happening. Move some energy. Fall in love with being alive. Even something small like slowing down to savour a delicious meal is valuable in the scheme of things.

Grief is part of the growing and changing that is happening. Welcome it in. It is a signal that you are letting go of something to make room for something else. All of it is necessary for life to unfold.