G.R.I.E.F

I start this newsletter with immense gratitude to the Conscious Living community for nudging me and continuously checking when the next MailChimp will be sent out. It warms my spirit to know that there is a community out there that waits for the ping in their inbox to further motivate them toward living consciously. It adds purpose and meaning to the work – thank you.

The topic of this newsletter may be unexpected as the first for a new year – grief. A morbid topic. And yet with the usual duality of life, there is so much that lies beneath this intricate word.

The year has started off, just like this newsletter topic, unexpectedly. The air around me has been gloomy, a theme of loss plaguing clients’ stories, and world events surrounding us that are affecting our moods and states. I try to stay away from the news but the news comes to our doors with its’ sorrow doesn’t it?

The reality in fact, is that there seems to be a grieving taking place – that without acknowledging – isn’t allowing us to plunge into new beginnings yet. There seems to be a few steps we need to take to get us passed or through.

This newsletter is for anyone going through a form of crisis in their world. The Oxford dictionary defines crisis as “a time of intense difficulty”. In any crisis, there is an experience of loss. Perhaps loss of a person or relationship, loss of a job or finances, loss of trust, loss of life as you knew it before. Transitions. Change. Moving into retirement, moving countries, empty nest when the children leave home. Each of us experiences our life as a complex swirl of celebrations, setbacks, triumphs, and rebirths across the full span of our years. Life disruptors always land in our path. And with this, it is necessary to grieve – to feel – to go through the process to reach acceptance and move into a new beginning.

There is a psychological model that outlines the 3 phases of crisis that are necessary to go through: 1. The Long Goodbye; 2. The Messy Middle; and 3. The New Beginning.

The long goodbye: is where you say goodbye to a life that is not coming back. Perhaps saying goodbye to the old you or your old life. Or to someone you love. This is the mourning or grieving phase (described in the 5 stages of grief below). Acknowledging the reality exactly as it is and working toward letting it go.

The messy middle: is when you are shedding certain habits and mindsets and creating new ones. You are trying different or new things to see what works and what doesn’t. It feels messy.

The New beginning: is when you are unveiling your new self or a new way of life. When you begin to feel clearer on what is working and releasing what isn’t. It’s time to update your story.

Whatever crisis or intense difficulty you may be going through, I nudge you to take on the challenges I have set below to resource yourself to work through it consciously and intentionally. Afterall, the crisis may have arrived to open up vast possibility you didn’t know could exist. Let us not miss the lesson and opportunity for a New Beginning – a chance to start again and rebuild.

“Transitions are essential to life. The single most powerful idea that emerged from years of listening to life stories is that all of us go through tumultuous periods—and not just once or twice, but multiple times in our lives. As long as we have to do all this heartrending and heart-mending, along with the rebalancing of sources of meaning that comes with it, why don’t we spend more time trying to master them?” (Feiler, B; 2020)

Science on The 5 stages of Grief (The Kubler-Ross model):

There is no order to these stages as everyone goes through them differently. You may also cycle through these over again, not just once and they serve as a reference instead of a guide on how to grieve.

Your challenge:

Take some time out for yourself and journal about where you might be in the 5 stages of grief.

Step 1: Write down any thoughts and feelings about the crisis or difficulty you are experiencing. Allow yourself to ‘flow write’ (freely write) – there are no rules to journaling other than being exactly where you are.

Step 2: Read through what you wrote. This may be difficult or feel confronting to acknowledge how deeply you may feel emotion. It is common that we suppress our real feelings and thoughts, and often one can feel shame or discomfort accepting these feelings and thoughts exist.

Step 3: Read through the 5 stages of grief and try to identify where you might be in your cycle of healing. You may identify with being in more than one stage at a time.

Step 4: Now that you have an idea of what stage or stages you might be in, acknowledge it, allow it and accept that it is where you are and it is necessary. At this point there is no need to fix, change, or wish yourself out of the stage. To get passed it you have to go through it.

Supercharge the challenge:

As you are working through your grief cycle, you are working on the ‘long goodbye’ phase of your crisis process. You may even be slowly tapping into the ‘messy middle’ as you try different ways of coping.

Here are some further suggestions or tips to move through the three phases of crisis as you feel closer to the acceptance of your loss, change or transition and feel ready to embark toward the new beginning.

Long goodbye: face your feelings and write them down; write a letter to the person or situation you feel the associated loss with – tear the letter up, burn it, bury it or light a candle and pray – choose a ritual that signals you are accepting the loss, change, transition and need to move on. Somewhat a memorial.

Messy Middle: In this stage start to shed things – mindsets, routines, delusions, dreams, old ways of doing things. Like animals who molt when they enter a new phase, cast off parts of your life and bad habits that no longer serve you.

New Beginning: Try something creative. Often, people turn to creativity to deal with major shifts in their lives. They start to dance, cook, paint, write poems and keep diaries. It helps — at our moments of greatest chaos, it is natural for us to respond with creation.

by Bronwyn Russo

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