Hi. Are you still there, dear reader? It’s been a while since I’ve written. I thought I would pop my head out from under the rock of my own life to give a bit of an update.
Today happens to be the third anniversary of J’s death. Last time I wrote, I was deep in grief. Grief is an eater of worlds, a black hole of hope. Old dreams and ideas crumble away like New York buildings after Avenger heroics. What is left is a cratered landscape.
But that’s the thing with total destruction—there is nothing obstructing the view. Clarity is the consolation prize, the thin silver lining around the dark, churning vortex.
Let me explain.
Longing and hope are tricky little vixens, aren’t they? Before J died, I spent a lot of energy hoping against hope for a better outcome between us. I conducted endless conversations with him in my head; needed to take a breath and pause every time he texted—not only to brace myself for more conflict but also to manage the foolish hope and longing that would bubble out of me. I never stopped hoping we could somehow be back in each other’s lives, even if it was in a different way than our marriage. It was a longing that became a familiar ache in my chest, like a large, painful bruise you are compelled to press once in a while, just to confirm it’s still there.
But then The Most Terrible Thing happened and it was too late. There was nowhere else to go. Our relationship would now remain in unresolved purgatory forever: words would remain unspoken, apologies unoffered and unaccepted, forgiveness ungiven, and love un-reconfigured.
Hope and longing, deprived of the oxygen of possibility, of the unknown, simply shrivelled up and died.
Instead of the long Everest-like climb for which I had been mentally equipping myself, I was confronted by the crater. I had trained hard for the gruelling journey to healing and forgiveness— exercised my “I statement” muscles, practiced mindfulness until I could find that that space between reaction and response with just a few breaths.
It was all for nothing. Instead of a steep mountain to climb, there was a ravaged landscape. The future was so glaringly absent of his presence. The only thing I could do was put down my pack and contemplate the emptiness in front of me.
What now?
The girls were in their twenties with dreams and loves and adventures to pursue. They were moving out, getting on with their lives.
It was just me. What was even more frightening to contemplate was that statistically speaking, I had at least another 30 to 40 years of “just me” ahead.
At the age of 47 I began to feel the dizzying vertigo of being the main protagonist of my story. So many years left. What do I do with them?
The answer came pretty fast, actually.
I want to spend this next half of my life helping people understand what took me almost a decade to really internalize:
- Self-compassion is not a nice-to-have, a frilly little self-care option, but a necessary practice in order to truly grow up and own our shit as individuals and as a species.
- Uncertainty is the only certainty, and change the only constant. Anybody telling you different is trying to sell you something or get you to join their cult. What is also true is that living with this fact is the cause of much of our existential anxiety and we will do anything to avoid it.
- Practicing 1 and living with the existential anxiety of 2 are lifelong practices. They require careful, constant, considered nurturance. In short, they require us to stop hiding in the certainty of static noun-like states and start living in the ever-moving flow of verb-like states.
James Hollis puts it this way:
“…Our egos are uncomfortable with [] profound otherness and tend to move the experience from a verb—that is, something happening—to something that happened, to move it from a phenomenologically felt encounter to an object that we can understand, perhaps control. In these moments we risk the oldest of religious heresies, namely idolatry…Albeit unwittingly, we are all idolaters, for from time to time we grow bewitched by our constructs, and are seduced by our need for fixity over intelligence.” (What Matters Most: Living a More Considered Life, pp.102-103).
No construct is more bewitching than the ones our egos build about our own identities. We tell stories about ourselves and these stories, if taken too seriously or repeated too many times, risk solidifying into bricks that form our internal prisons.
How do we break down the brick-like stories we’ve assiduously built up in the first part of our life? How do we allow for a more fluid, more compassionate, more curious concept of ourselves? How do we find the stillness, calmness and equanimity to sit in the ever-churning mystery of existence? In short, how can we go through life a little lighter, a little easier, a little kinder?
That’s the work, my friend. We have to choose it every day and that’s not easy. Sometimes we need a little help to understand that our desire for fixity has resulted in a nice, cozy prison for ourselves and that a lot of our outer conflict is caused by the prisoner inside us clanging loudly at the bars to be freed.
Like me. I needed that help. I was clanging loudly at the bars. The uncomfortable truth is that I suspect so was J.
This last decade has been one of very, very hard lessons. Without my own therapist to guide me, without my friends and family to hold me up, I don’t think I would have made it. It also bears mentioning that without the beautiful minds who wrote beautiful books I don’t think I would have been able to re-construct a more malleable, fluid, more elegant story for myself.
Art and love and curious, non-judgemental pondering were both the armour, the shelter and the guides through this very dark landscape.
The lessons I learned were so big they changed the direction of my life. I’m no longer content to waste time on work that doesn’t serve this calling. I want to spend the next half of my life providing the emotional space to people who have the courage to reckon with their own darkness. At some point, we all have to face our inner Mordors, the dark, scary places inside us that must be explored and reconciled before any change can occur.
In short, I want to spend my time in spaces where inquiry into this human journey is the norm and meaning is being consciously crafted and created. Because I truly believe that better relationships and decision-making at the collective level depends on our ability to be in better relationship with ourselves and those around us.
So. I have opened my own practice called Alter Counselling.
You can also find me on Psychology Today and on the BC Association of Clinical Counsellors (BCACC) Website.
Why Alter is my first ever blog entry for professional purposes. Writing will be a big part of my practice, so if you’re interested, please sign up for my newsletter.
Note: I am not sure what I am going to do with this blog. It is very personal and very dear to me, as it is a testimony of the last couple of decades of my life. I have to think long and hard how to honour it while ethically integrating it into my practice. Stay tuned. This whole transition is the epitome of an iterative process.
And, if you can, take a moment to remember J and the beauty he brought into this world. While his absence from this world remains a crater in our hearts, the memory of him is a constant, gentle breeze keeping us company as we contemplate the empty space.
Lina Branter 