I’ve been really busy lately, training, public speaking and working on the everlasting project of my book – it changes so often with new personal experiences, that I ‘d like to share, that I’m beginning to think it will never ever end.
I guess that’s how life is for many of us, if we are honest. My life has presented so many changes and opportunities, new people and experiences that I am in a constant state of learning about others and about myself. I’m listening to the stories of others and I’m sharing my own.
What I’m learning is that we really really can’t ever experience how it is or feels to be someone else. That the most we can hope for and its not always achievable, is that someone else might be able to connect something of their our experience to ours. When we experience this it really can make us feel validated, like ….
Well I must be doing okay then because others say they feel as I do.
Sometimes how we feel can feel too difficult to share. Too weird perhaps or crazy or maybe unacceptable. Maybe if others knew our real thoughts they’d be shocked or dismissive or they might even reject us.
I’m hoping that as you read this you’ll recognise that how you feel , how you manage and how you think, are as individual and as unique as you are. That is what makes you YOU
It is I think, the unfortunate pressure from a perceived perfect society, that makes us conform to a norm that really doesn’t exist, to compare even our grief to the grief of others. It creates assumptions and unrealistic perceptions and for some unachievable goals.
How you feel about your life, what makes you feel or react in certain ways, is unique to you and to your personal experiences and interpretation of them.
Some people will come through a loss apparently moving forward/onwards with their lives with what may seem to others to be ease. Others may struggle with loss, it being a life long partner, sometimes in years ahead for some reason as raw as ever.
I don’t believe we ever get over a loss, I think we grow around the experience, we carry it with us. For some the pain is a comfort, for some its a driving force that activates other areas of their lives. The journey is unique.
I’d like to think that those that I have supported, worked with and trained, have taken what I am saying and found it useful.
That by recognising that none of us is the expert or can be the expert in the life of another changes can be made that free us all from trying to hard to grieve ‘properly’
When we are going through a personal crisis, sometimes, all we need is to be heard.Acknowledged and not compared. It really is okay that you don’t always feel okay.
Not everyone will understand your journey
That’s fine
It’s not their journey to make sense of
IT’S YOURS !
Alex