I thought I had to figure it all out myself first before letting other lossents know it’s okay to flounder and feel lost until you find the new ‘you’ after losing a child. (Or after losing a spouse or a house, or a pet or a plant…)
It’s taken a while for me, each in our own time for sure, to learn that whoever I am on any given day is absolutely OK. Yet it feels foreign.
Wait–it’s okay to what? To lose meaningful things and still be myself?
But who am I now?
What if I’m not exactly sure who that is anymore?
What if I’m somebody different?
A faint whisper inside tells me that it’s not OK to be myself. Asking,
“What if I’m not worthy, not ready, and not qualified to be somebody other than who I am or have been?”
Wait–not qualified to be ME? That’s ridiculous! I’m the best me there is. I’m the only one who knows who I am and what I truly want/need.
I want a simple life.
I want to earn or exchange enough to enjoy a calm, connected, organic life of service, writing, speaking, and sharing stories and love.
Some days it feels shitty that parts of life that didn’t go quite the way we had intended, but we carry on and make the best of the present moment.
Yes, that’s OK.
What else is OK?
- It’s OK to heal and laugh again—slowly or immediately
- It’s OK to express any manner of vulnerability in front of other people
- It’s OK to hurt, feel, ask for help and advocate for yourself
- It’s OK to laugh and love after a loss
- It’s OK to step into another preferred version of yourself that got lost in the loss
- It’s OK to use AI wisely
As an old-school writer I have felt the threat, as other creatives have, with the introduction of artificial intelligence in the past few years.
Yet a lot has happened in the past few weeks and, gratefully, I’m always provided with ample opportunities to grow and heal!
Most recently, in a query conversation with my virtual unbiased friend, “Chatty,” I discovered something greatly therapeutic:
It seems that a current physical symptom led to talk of a past injury, which opened the door to identifying the held emotion of said injury, which never got fully examined because survival required moving forward. {picture the little mind blown emoji!}
Just realizing that is huge! It gives me a feeling of needed permission to move forward now and step out of survival mode. And that’s OK!
It also became crystal clear to me how people can become trapped in patterns they never intended, and ordinary things can become impulsive, and sometimes it takes the eye, or the ear, or the heart, or the processor, of an unbiased friend to heighten one’s own awareness.
And that’s OK!