TIPS TO MAKE LEAVING EASIER
How do you manage when it is time to leave? Leaving anything can be difficult. How many things have you left behind in your lifetime? School? A job? Home? How about a stage of life like childhood, adolescence (thank God!), or middle age? (Photo by Mantas-Hesthaven on Unsplash)
Perhaps you have left a dream you set out to follow once upon a time, a relationship changed, or a home you built with your hands is now on the market. I even have had moments where I have taken leave of my senses! There is an art to letting go.
Leaving can be a cause to celebrate or mourn, depending on how much we invest in not letting go, or how much we desire what lies ahead. There are no rules. But some things help our transitions. Here are a few that have helped me.
TREASURE WHAT IS
Sometimes, when I have looked forward to something for a long time, I forget to record the highlights of what I leave behind.
When I turned sixteen, I had no awareness that one day I might want to remember my thirteenth birthday party, or my teacher in fourth grade, or the places I explored as a child at the lake.
Why is this important when I am moving on! Who cares about details like this? I only wanted to grow up, finish school, and get on with life. I certainly had no desire to hang on to the past.
Today I am at the other end of the aging spectrum. Although I treasure every moment of life today, I struggle to remember the details of what made my childhood special. (Photo by Thought-Catalog on Unsplash)
Treasuring is in the details. Therefore I began relatively recently to record stories I will want to remember “when I grow up.” (Read How to Leave a Legacy of Story for more insight)
SAVOR THE PROCESS OF LEAVING
Whenever we leave a job, a home, or a relationship, there is always a process that may or may not be a happy time.
We left a beloved home in the country when my boys were teenagers (along with chickens, ducks, rabbits, goats, dogs, cats, and generations of mice). The leaving was abrupt and left us all reeling.
Even today, each of us has a yearning to go back. I believe the thirst stems from not taking the time to say goodbye and not fully savoring what we left behind.
To savor would have meant taking time, recording memories, celebrating what was good, and evaluating what needs change.
It helps to bring an object with special meaning to ‘seed’ or bless a new place we find ourselves, to make a bond between what was left and is ahead.
A small colorful tablecloth that belonged to my mother has moved along with me to every home I have lived. Today it is the only one we use when going on a picnic.
(Photo by rabie-madaci on Unsplash)
More challenging is to find something that represents an idea we have left behind when we move from one ideology to another. I have some books on my shelf that make that link for me.
MOURN WHAT IS LEFT BEHIND
In the process of grieving what we leave behind, seeing new possibilities remains difficult. We grieve, but often we forget to mourn.
Grief, an internal feeling of sorrow and loss, plunges us into loneliness; mourning, an outward expression of that grief, brings us the support of others with whom we share the loss. There is healing in the process.
Funerals are just one example of mourning where friends gather, name the loss, and celebrate together. Often food and laughter, together with storytelling, are a balm to a broken heart. (Photo by Marc-Schaeferon Unsplash)
When we moved from our little farmhouse, there was no gathering to celebrate the life we had there. We were not intentional about telling stories. Like the day a frog came out of the faucet. I had primed the pump with water from the nearby pond. Apparently, some polliwogs came of age in our water tank.
We took no time to weep at the loss of getting warm by a wood stove on a frigid winter day or enjoying eggs from our chickens. Yet the losses were as tangible as losing a beloved parent or friend to death.
LEAVING BAD HABITS
We often don’t think about publicly mourning or acknowledging our pain when we leave less tangible things in our life.
I have left patterns of behavior that were not healthy. I felt too much shame to mourn – to openly confess when I drank too much after my husband’s death. People may have assumed all my sadness was about missing him. But I will tell you I also missed the wine that made my loss bearable.
I was free to talk about my loss of someone I loved, but I never spoke about the emptiness I felt when I gave up the wine that helped numb the pain. I grieved. Alone. But I could not mourn. To make it public was a shame I couldn’t bear.(Photo by Andy-Kogl on Unsplash)
When I leave behind an unhealthy habit today to fully embrace life, I am free to talk about it and treat myself with compassion instead of judgment. Of course we miss the things we used to enjoy, even if they weren’t right for us. We need each other for comfort, not judgment, at times like this.
CELEBRATE THE PRESENT MOMENT
One of the challenges that arises when we leave a lifestyle, residence, relationship, or belief system for another hides in a future that hasn’t yet arrived.
When we try to live in a place that doesn’t exist, we go from mourning the past to fearing the future without taking a breath.
Somewhere in between is a party waiting to happen.
(Photo by Tobias-Tullius on Unsplash)
A moment in which celebration can occur.
‘Thin place’ defines space between the past and the future. Or just before sunrise when night yields to daytime.
It is that time when summer turns to autumn or winter to spring. It is the liminal space heaven and earth. A thin place is a sacred space, suspending space, celebration space.
I have learned to recognize thin places and to pause there. I know it isn’t permanent. But I also know it will return.
There is a rhythm to this heavenly joy. It is available no matter how troubling the circumstances of life.
Amid a hurricane or forest fire, there will still be a sunrise. When our tomorrow looks bleaker than our yesterday, there is ‘NOW,’ and at this moment – right now – I can savor many things that make me smile.
I am breathing and hear birds singing. My eyes let me see to read and write. Two kittens curled up together on the sofa offer me a soft touch and a purr. I am loved.
Right now, in a thin place between the past and future, I am in heaven. Is this what Jesus meant when he said, “The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand?”
