I am well aware of what happens while we wait. The hope that keeps us going, until it begins to feel like it is crushing us. The effort we make that seems to go nowhere. The prayers we pray. The angst that feels like it is crushing our lungs. The constant wondering if it will ever happen, knowing that just because it hasn’t happened doesn’t mean it won’t, but it doesn’t mean it will. Carrying this unseen weight into all moments, desperately wanting answers, while knowing that only God holds them.
As a coach this is where I would investigate what is holding you back, all the while knowing that sometimes we just need the grace of time. Grace means unmerited favor, so to be favored with time is an amazing gift, but it doesn’t feel amazing in the wait. In the moment it can feel hopeless, helpless, never ending, crazy, aching, longing, searching, or even an extended dark night of the soul. This is where I find the gift of perspective. It may have been YEARS of waiting, working, quips/proverbs/quotes, and wondering when you will see the results. So more time does not feel like a gift, but you are exactly where you need to be, which means if you need time you need it for a reason … or a few reasons.
In my experience that isn’t exactly comforting. But you aren’t comfortable right now, you are in the season of YET. Part of the discomfort is discovering how little of life is comfortable. Humans do everything we can to get and keep comfortable, we tolerate horrible situations because the known is just comfortable enough, and the unknown is terrifying. For those of us who have stepped into the land of YET, we have discovered value in the discomfort. There are a lot more feelings than just comfort. Comfort can bring laziness, indifference, and an unhealthy tolerance. It is in having the strength, patience, and bravery to sit in the uncomfortable YET, waiting for things to finally work out, that we discover life has far more for us than comfort and happiness.
Here you are in the uncomfortable yet. Discovering that there is more to life. More to you. More to be. Are you white knuckling it? Or are you taking this time to grow, heal, and become the person who is ready to step out of the yet and into the finally? As a coach this is what I do, I help people find perspective and growth in the waiting. I help people overcome that which keeps them stuck. And I can help you too! Click here to sign up for a free 30min sample session to discover how.
We are finishing the season of graduations, college a month ago, and high schools in my area graduate over the next week - yes, I know how late that is! The reminder I get from graduations is two fold, the first is that from every new beginning comes from some others beginnings end (thank you Semisonic). And the second is that graduations mark the moment where a group of people who have been sharing life together complete that season, and go different ways.
The road of life takes us all different places, and what we focus on is what we become. When looking back across the years it is easy to wonder where someone else went, what they are up to, and why you no longer have a relationship. But what may be less obvious is how much you have changed as you have made the choices that have shaped your life. We are so used to being us that we don’t notice changes unless they are rapid and big.
The reality is that most change happens slowly and intentionally until one day you look back and realize that this is no longer who you are, but who you were. As beautiful as it is to arrive at this place, it is also the place where you will begin to realize that those friends who aren’t growing like you are, or in the direction you are, are a place of discomfort as you struggle to continue to connect with someone whom you care about, but with whom you have less and less in common. At some point if your friend really cares they will ask you, in some form, “where did you go?”
For some, losing relationships that no longer fit is just a part of life. But for others it becomes a painful choice between paying the cost of losing friendships, or paying the price of being the person they want you to be. Each choice costs and brings different outcomes. May we all be so fortunate to be surrounded by close friends who are also growing and seeking the best for each other. But for those friends we lose, and the ones we have not yet grown into knowing, it is a painful, awkward, and isolated season of growth.
It is easy to feel lost in these transitional seasons where you have outgrown one area of life, but are still growing into a new place. Don’t stop! It may look and feel like you are alone, but you aren’t, you just haven’t found your people yet. As a coach I have tools that can help you get there faster. Don’t wander endlessly! You can sign up here for a free 30 min session to see how it works.
Grief is one of those deeply personal experiences because no one has your exact life story. Which means when the grief hits you are acutely aware of how alone you can be in life. As we enter Memorial Day weekend it is super easy to focus on all the summery activities and obligations. Graduations are happening, along with their celebrations. The warmth of the season pulls us back out into nature. And we forget that this holiday was set after World War 2 to remember those that died serving our country in war.
My Grandfather served in Korea, one of the core memories that I have is of him standing in his kitchen staring out the window, while smoking a cigar and sipping coffee. He wouldn’t talk about what was on his mind, men of his generation didn’t do that. But it was on his face, the ache of the losses he had faced throughout his life. Losses that extended beyond losing friends in war, his parents, siblings, and even a daughter. For the weight of grief is also in the losses we don’t acknowledge as a culture or community.
When someone dies we gather as a community to celebrate their life, and to grieve together. When a beloved pet passes those who are closest to us come around us to help us grieve the loss and adjust to the void. When we lose a job someone may observe that we need to grieve it, but mostly we are told to learn from it and move on. I have found that in all that we grieve the common thread is grieving what will never be. My Grandfather ached for the men with whom he would not be able to talk to again. We ache for the pet that no longer greets us. We ache for the lost opportunities that come with losing a job. We ache for our children who don’t have the opportunities we hoped for them. We ache for the relationships we haven’t been able to keep. We grieve the loss of our dreams, all we hoped for that will never be. We grieve.
What makes it good? Grief can be such a delicately complicated web. Only the one who weaves it knows which are the sticky threads. One of those sticky threads is the painful reality that in losing a good thing, we also lose some bad. There seems to be an unspoken rule when someone dies that we aren’t allowed to speak poorly of them, even if it is true. When we lose a job we want to speak poorly of those that did the firing, but what about the parts of the job that you won’t miss? When you lose a friendship, what about that person leaving your life is healing to you?
I have learned that the good in grief is the process of letting go allows for healing that I never expected to receive. Part of the ache of loss is the breaking of oneself, and watching that heal and restore, and begin to shine in new ways is the good! The only way through grief is to keep moving, and that movement itself feels like it is adding pain! But it is this movement that realigns us. This realignment forces us to let go of hopes; dreams; experiences we won’t share; expectations that we have of ourselves; we let go of the guilt and shame caused by the person or experience; and we begin to gain new perspectives that leave us forever changed.
The good in grief is rarely seen while grieving. It is found on the other side, when you look in the mirror and see that you are living in greater alignment with who you truly are and what matters most to you. So whatever is breaking you today in grief, know that you are in a process of transformation and you won’t reach butterfly if you don’t first break completely down into the cocoon. Trusting this process can be scary, brutal, and very difficult if you don’t have people around you to walk you through. As a coach it is my honor to walk with people through different seasons to support their growth and alignment. If you want to know more you can sign up here for a free 30 minute session to learn how I can help you through your transforming grief.
Dr. Jordan Peterson said “One of the advantages of being true to your own visions is that you won’t get what you don’t want.” The opposite reality being that if you don’t keep true then you won’t get what you so desire. For many this is the greatest consequence in life, to get to the end and not feeling like it mattered. This is why so many people spend their 30’s reassessing the priorities that they set in their 20’s and why by the late 30’s it looks like they are having a crisis because they make so many big changes in quick fashion.
It is not a crisis to make changes and create the lifestyle that you want.
It is not a crisis to change careers, even if that is leaving the workplace to be a SAHM.
It is not a crisis to move five states a way.
It is not a crisis to align all of your time and money to reflect your values and to stop trying to keep up with the expectations of others.
It is not a crisis to buy chickens and start a garden.
It is not a crisis to get a new car, as long as it is within your budget.
Even if you do all of these things, it doesn’t mean you are having a crisis! Maybe it means for the first time ever you are not in a crisis! Have you paused to recognize the chaos you were living in, the constant conflict with yourself, by living out expectations that didn’t align with your values, with your priorities, and were pulling you further away from your goals?
Or are you that person who is reading this and for the first time you are wondering if you really do have permission to dream, to live out that vision, and to pursue your life in a way that makes your heart sing? Yes, you do have permission.
Where ever you land in this process here are three areas to focus on to align your life and avoid the internal chaos:
- Your highest values. What matters most to you in life? What do you refuse to compromise? What do you want to define you? These are your highest values.
- Your values will help you choose priorities. Throughout life our priorities change and as they change we adjust the goals we need to achieve to fulfill our prioritized values. For example, if one of your highest values is to be a mom, as you let this value set priorities you may adjust your goals to reduce how much you work outside the home so that you can spend more time with your kids.
- Last but not at all least, your faith. In fact, this is probably your highest value, which will definitely influence your priorities. But I find that when I do the work in this order that I expose my true self, my deepest heart, by naming my values and priorities, and then I check them against my faith and what God says about me, and about them. This might feel like double the work, but the resistance I have towards God when I already know what is in my heart and coming from me is less when I realize that He is asking me to give up something I think is so great for something that He knows is far greater.
Like Peterson said, being true to your vision for life will get you what you want. But you won’t have that life until you do the work to get it. What you choose is what you have.
Are you feeling stuck in this process? An endless battle with yourself? Feel like you have to battle everyone else to convince them that you are on the right path for you? This is what I do as a coach, help you navigate the path to creating a life that you can live in the fullness of who you are and what matters most to you. Get your free sample session here.
I see you.
Your mom may have done her best, but that doesn’t mean your childhood was any less painful.
Your mom may have done her best, but that doesn’t mean you weren’t neglected.
Your mom may have claimed she was doing her best, but as you have become an adult you realize that she either couldn’t or wouldn’t and being incapable is less painful than unwilling, but you don’t know which you want it to be.
You have been told a hundred times how wonderful your mother is, and you wonder who they are talking about.
Your heart breaks daily because of how much you love and care for your children, and it reminds you of all you didn’t have growing up.
They don’t make cards that say “Thanks mom, for keeping me alive until I could do it myself” or “Thanks for trying your best, I learned a lot from all you didn’t do” or “Everyone told me to give my mother a break because motherhood is difficult, but now that I am one I know that I was nice to you in my honesty about your parenting.”
If you have made it this far and want to tell me all the ways I am wrong, then what you haven’t realized is that this blog entry is not for you. This blog is for those women whose mom abused them. Whose mom had a mental disorder that they used as an excuse for all the things they didn’t want to do. For those who grew up with moms who weren’t required to heal and mature and who were told by their dads “at some point you are going to be more mature than your mom and will have to figure out how to be nice to her.” For those who, for whatever reason had to mom their mom, without ever knowing what it even means to be a mom. This is for those who met a woman 6 months ago who has shown them more maternal care than their own mother has in all of the last decade.
To these women I say again, I see you and I applaud you for choosing a different path! For doing the hard work to heal so that you would not break your children the way you were broken. And on this annual reminder of how complicated life and relationships can be, I would like to challenge you to take the time to continue this healing process this Mother’s Day weekend by preparing and processing through these 5 steps:
- Schedule time to not only process the below, but to care for yourself in this process. Prepare by dressing comfortably, gathering your favorite warm beverage, journal, tissue box, and sit in a place where you can emote as loudly, or softly, as needed, and have that person ready to give you a hug and just hold you until you can breathe again, because it is Mother’s Day and the reality is it does leave you that raw, but you have had to fake it. So, here is to not faking it, and gaining some healing.
- You have been told to forgive and forget. This is bad advice because beyond forgiveness there are two options: release or reconciliation. Reconciliation will require your mom to own things that she has done and, where applicable, not only apologize for, but actually show you that she will treat you differently. This process also requires boundaries! Remember when it comes to boundaries they aren’t solely about keeping people out, but by showing them the path back. So as you think this through, take a moment to identify the path back, if there is one.
- Take the time to grieve what you didn’t have that you now know you needed, and deserved. Don’t listen to the voice in your head that says “you are not entitled to _______.” because you ARE entitled as a human to receive basic love and care; to not be made to feel like a burden; to be celebrated for all the wonderful ways you are; to be allowed to take up space; and to live in peace and joy, not fear and shame. Grieve the loss of what you didn't have, and release the shame what you were given instead.
- Consider how you may honestly and freely honor your mother? No guilt trips here! Though you may need to pause and review what it means to honor, not neglecting to see that honoring her may include not permitting her to hurt you more. There are ways in which you can choose to honor her from your healed place, and they do not include trippin by guilt!
- Once you have finished releasing the tears, or as my friend calls them “emotional sweat”, go find your person and get that hug! You are safe now. You are loved. You are delighted in because who you are is wonderful.
Drop a comment below and tell me what change you were able to make this Mother’s Day.
