Tag: acceptance
Acceptance of death of a loved one. Can we ever do it?
Acceptance of death of a loved one. Can we ever do it?
I want to talk about acceptance and what does acceptance mean? I hear a lot of people say, “I can never accept what’s happened. No, I’m not accepting it. I can’t. I cannot accept, it’s not okay that my partner died.”
So, acceptance, I think we have emotions attached to certain words. We have meanings attached to words, and we all have different meanings for different words.
And one of those is the word acceptance. We hear very often about acceptance and that we must learn to accept the fact that our partner has died. And many of us say, “no, I can’t do it. It’s not okay. I can’t accept that this person’s gone.” So what I think is good to do is to just define what we mean by acceptance?
What I do not mean by acceptance is saying, “well, it’s okay. I don’t mind that they’ve gone, it’s all okay. “That to me is not acceptance. It’s not okay. I am never going to be okay with the fact that Claire is dead, and I’m sure many of you are never going to be okay and that’s fine.
That is not what acceptance is for me, and I find this helpful. Acceptance is stopping the fight with wanting her back. It’s stopping the fight with those mixed emotions. “I’m so desperately sad, but I so love them.” or ” I so want her back.” or ” I’m so happy for the years I’m so desperately sad.”
Acceptance is stopping the fight. It’s acknowledging that that person has gone and saying:
“I feel crap. Terrible, awful. , and that’s a feeling. Well done, Mark. Well done. You’ve noticed that feeling, well done. It’s a feeling. Just sit with it for a moment. Be with it for a moment and let the feeling pass, because another feeling will turn up later.It may be the same one. It may be a different one. It may be a feeling about something else, but it’s just a feeling.”
My therapist described it to me like farts. She said, it’s just a fart, just let it go. Fart the feeling and let it go. And I think to me, that is acceptance. It’s still having those feelings but we’re not fighting them. We’re not fighting saying, “oh, it’s horrible. I don’t wanna feel like this.” We’re not saying, “oh, this person’s gone. They should be here.” We’re just saying “they’ve gone, it’s shit. I feel crap. Well done. That’s a feeling. Let it go and another feeling comes along”
… that is acceptance.
So I wonder can you get to a place of giving up the fight for wanting something different?
For feeling something different. And to live with the feeling as it is, to stop fighting and to use that as a definition of acceptance. Let me know, I’d love to hear from you.
Grief and Kintsugi – Adding to The Beauty of What Was
Grief and Kintsugi – Adding to The Beauty of What Was
The Japanese art form called Kintsugi 金継ぎ “golden joinery” is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with lacquer that is dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver or platinum. The artform, as a philosophy treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise.
It’s truly beautiful.
Kinsugi is a centuries-old art form which relies on a few guiding principles:
- Breaks and cracks should be emphasised rather than hidden or disguised.
- The repaired piece should be even more beautiful than the original.
- The repaired piece should have a second lease of life.
- The break or repair should be treated as part of the history of the object.
- Flaws and imperfections are something to be embraced.
All of this is held in perfect harmony with, and not contrary to the fact that the object was indeed beautiful in its first iteration, before it smashed.
Living with grief has many similarities.
Before Claire died I was very happy with my life, I wouldn’t want anything to change, life was beautiful with her.
And then this awful thing happened, my life was smashed apart, broken into a 1000 pieces.
I could stare at the all of those pieces and wish for that life to be reinstated. Somehow, magically those pieces should reform themselves, with no cracks, into the beautiful life it was before.
Except that will never happen.
So instead, I choose to treat the flaws and imperfections that were caused as something to be embraced. Those cracks are now part of my history, and as such add beauty.
Some people like the look of Kintsugi, some people might prefer the look of the item before. Neither are right. Neither are wrong.
Regardless of whether you like Kintsugi or not, there’s no going back. There’s no way to put things back the way they were before, so I’m moving forwards, celebrating the past and adding to it rather than taking away.
I don’t think this is a viewpoint we can clearly see immediately in the aftermath of the death of someone close to us.
It’s all too raw, too painful and we want nothing more than to have everything put back the way it was before.
I do however think there comes a point of acceptance. Acceptance of both the pain and the fact of the death.
The question then becomes, what do we do with that acceptance. Do we sit back and idly allow life to pass us by, everyday looking at the smashed pieces on the floor and wondering why we can’t put things back the way they were. Or, do we treasure all of those broken pieces and painstakingly reassemble what we can, with love, with care and by actually adding to the beauty of what was there before?
The single most important and powerful moment of my life, ever
The single most important and powerful moment of my life, ever
I’ve just written a response to someone that left a comment on one of my old blog posts, their partner died within a 36 hour period, no time to say goodbye or make final plans.
I was just passing comment that Claire also died in a short period of time, 9 hours +/-.
The last time I ever saw Claire I was just arriving home from work, she was leaving the house with her sister on her way up to the hospital because she felt so terrible.
She looked awful.
We sat on the wall together outside our house whilst her sister brought the car round, I genuinely thought she just had a bit of a stomach bug, would go to hospital, they would give her some tablets and she’d be home in a couple of hours.
I kissed her goodbye and said that I would see her when they got home.
I never saw her again.
Bizarrely, the enormity of that single moment has only just really hit me.
A single moment in time, a split-second, a single glance, a whispered word, a knowing look and yet probably the single most important and powerful moment of my life, ever.
And at that moment, I didn’t know it.
Of course I’m fully aware that this life is temporary and that anyone can die at any moment, but I’m just wondering how different life would be if we treated EVERY communication as the last communication we would ever have.
Think about the very last thing you said to someone you love. Now imagine never seeing that person again or ever having the opportunity to say anything more.
You can’t say sorry.
You can’t tell them you love them.
You can’t correct anything that was wrong.
You can do absolutely nothing and have to accept absolutely everything.
How many moments are there which could be exactly like that?
It’s a powerful thought isn’t it?
Pain – thank you for your service
Pain – thank you for your service
It’s weird, nowadays I usually have a clear idea of what I’m going to talk about when I sit down to write, it’s been some four years since I felt the need to write for the sake of writing, for the therapy of it rather than because I had something specific to say.
Let’s see where this goes.
I went to a funeral yesterday of a friend, Aleks who died aged 36.
I was incredibly struck by the beauty of the service and celebration after.
She was bright and bubbly. The service was bright and bubbly.
She was quirky and loved life. The service and celebration afterwards was equally as quirky and a celebration of her love of life.
She loved cocktails. I saw many people celebrating her love of cocktails at the celebration after the service also!
I thought I’d come a long way since Claire died and indeed I know I have but yesterday was a reminder that what happened on 17 April 2013 will always be with me.
I guess it served as yet another reminder that this healing process through grief is not necessarily about finding ways to make the pain go away, rather, it’s about finding ways to live with the pain. I genuinely don’t believe we can make that pain go away, that pain is always with us, always there, hiding in the background yet not in a dark and threatening sense.
The pain is there to serve as a reminder of all that we have lost and in that sense the pain is good.
I don’t believe we should shy away from feeling that pain, if it’s there, embrace it, welcome it, acknowledge it for the transient emotion that it is, thank it for its service and then let it go again until the next time.
As there will always be a next time.
The pain will always resurface and when it does we repeat the same process.
This is the new normal, this is the new life, this is the way things are now and probably will always be.
So today, I’m rejoicing in the knowledge that the intense love that Claire and I shared is still there through the pain that I experienced yesterday.
Love and pain at the same time… Another lesson in learning to let go and just experience what is…
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This post is dedicated to Aleks Morris. 15th of January 1982 – 28th of February 2018 and to her family and friends.
Aleks, You made me feel so welcome in my new house when I moved to Dorset 4 years ago. You shared laughter, wine and chocolate with us on many occasions, often quite loudly… I think I never told you I could hear you howling with laughter from over the road with my windows shut!
Thank you Aleks for all you brought to my life in the few years I’ve known you.
Farewell my friend.
Climbing the mountain of grief
Climbing the mountain of grief
Sometimes, when we begin our journey into grief and loss we see the huge mountain of this life we need to live rising up in front of us… massive, craggy, insurmountable.
But if we stand there long enough, surveying the surroundings we may notice there is another way up, we reach the same destination but the journey is simpler, easier and more beautiful than we could ever have imagined.
A Lesson of Longing or Acceptance
A Lesson of Longing or Acceptance
When our partner dies we often ask ourselves the question “when will I feel normal again?” or “when will I stop feeling like this?”.
I think there is a great lesson to be learnt from this longing of the way we think we should feel.
That lesson is a lesson of accepting the way we feel, however that way is.
When we accept the way we feel we open up the possibility of feeling happy with it and also we give opportunity to feeling something different.
If we have a predetermined longing to feel a certain way then we close down our mind to the endless possibilities that are out there.
When we truly accept the way we feel and are happy with that then I think we are making progress.
I think.
Therefore I am!
When will the pain stop?
When will the pain stop?
When will the pain stop?
When will I stop feeling like THIS?
Both questions I hear many times from widows and widowers.
Claire and I were together for almost 30 years, the intensity of the love that we had for each other was immense.
The intensity of that love continues and I have no wish for it to die with her.
Because the intensity of the love that I have for her continues in her absence the pain continues also.
I have no desire for the intensity of love to stop, ergo, the pain will not stop either.
I have two choices.
- Fight the pain.
- Accept the pain.
Fighting the pain is committing to a life of futility and struggle, the conflict will always be there, lose the pain and lose the intensity of love, two sides of the same coin.
Accepting the pain is making a choice… making a choice is taking action… making a choice is doing something and is choosing. When we choose we take control and taking control is uplifting.
The pain will never stop but as time goes on I find ways to deal with it, accept it and choose to live with it.
I choose to stop fighting… Do you?
Swimming
Swimming
The journey I am on is a journey with a very distinct beginning, yet it is a journey without an end. Imagine walking down the beach towards the sea, taking the first tentative step as the waves break around your feet and walking out deeper and deeper into the ocean. As the water surrounds you you realise at some point you need to start swimming and so you just swim, further and further away from the shoreline. The further you get from where you were the more lost you become until eventually the shoreline, and everything you know disappears completely from view. As you lose sight of where you were, you have no idea which direction to go in, and so you have only one option, keep swimming, keep swimming.
And whilst that analogy holds true we wouldn’t really do that would we, we wouldn’t just walk out into the sea and begin swimming. If we wanted to swim the English Channel we would have a support vessel, we’d cover our bodies in a protective layer to keep us warm, we would inform the Coast Guard of where we were going, we would avoid all the large ships which crossed our path and eventually, with the aid of everything around us we would reach the other side.
And yet, even with all this help, I’m sure that when the sight of land disappears behind us and has yet to appear in front of us, it could seem as though we are in the middle of the channel with nothing but pain and torture in front of us. It’s only the sheer determination to keep going that would keep us on our path to the other side.
The difference with grief is that there isn’t another side, there isn’t a destination. There is only the journey. And yet, with the support of those around us, our own internal resources and the sheer determination that we all possess. We can just keep swimming, swimming, swimming.
And as I keep on swimming it becomes easier to accept that this is my life now, it becomes easier to accept that I can no longer see the shoreline from where I started. It was a lovely shoreline, I spent many happy years relaxing on it and enjoying being there, but it’s gone, it has disappeared from sight and will never return.
I’ve no idea which way to go on this journey, I’m just going to pick a direction and keep tenaciously swimming, accepting the help of those around me to act as my support vessel and just keep on going until the glorious day that grief turns in to love and I sight land head.
This too shall pass
This too shall pass
I feel very strongly that I have turned a corner, a corner of acceptance, not necessarily acceptance of losing Claire but acceptance of the emotions attached to that. I’m still often overwhelmed with the love that I feel for her and then I become overwhelmed with loneliness and loss. I go from high to low in the blink of an eye.
I can wake up one morning and feel good, or I can wake up one morning and feel terrible.
One minute I can be focused on the task in hand and the next my mind can be wondering in 100 different directions.
I’ve reached a point of acceptance of these dichotomous emotions. They are the way things are, and each of them shall pass.
When I’m feeling good it keeps me grounded to know that things can change quite quickly and I will probably feel low again.
When I’m feeling low it keeps me hopeful to know that things can change quite quickly and I will feel happy again.
Whatever happens, however I feel at any given moment… This too shall pass.
Life as a Book
Life as a Book
“For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin – real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be got through first, some unfinished business, time to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life.”
Alfred D’Souza
I read those words yesterday and they hit home, they hit home pretty hard.
I enjoyed lunch yesterday with a good friend (thanks Emma) and we were talking about the ‘when/then’ game. When the kids have left home then it would be better. When I’ve moved house then I can relax. When/then.
Claire and I used to joke that we would write a book called “It’ll be better when…” and then make jokes about all of the times that we had used that expression or heard other people use it, perhaps that’s a project of the future, but thinking about it now really does make me stop and consider things.
What has opened up for me now is a completely new chapter in my life, I thought I knew where the story was going until I turned the page on 17 April and the great author in the sky decided to take the story in a different direction. I can see now that those early chapters were leading me in a direction and I had made up my own ending, I was pinning all of my hopes on chapters I was yet to read, life was going to begin in those chapters.
But as I sit here writing this down I can see the entire book, it’s closed so I’ve no idea where the story goes, but I can see that this IS my life. It doesn’t begin over the page, it began at the beginning of the book and I’m in it now, this is it, these obstacles ARE my life.
There is a lot to be said for writing the end of the book ourselves and creating our future as we go, and there is also a lot to be said for reading the words of the page that we are on, reading them slowly, reading them with meaning and most of all enjoying them.
I’ve no idea what is over the page, at the moment I have no idea what the next paragraph says, but I do know that for the time being at least, I’m going to read those words very slowly.