Do You Think I Have Moved On?
I cringe when I hear this term “moving on” with regard to life after you have lost your loved one. Because it is false. It is untrue. And it puts too much pressure on those who are struggling to find a life after their loss.
I have experienced so many people saying that to me “oh now you have moved on” or the assumption that I have “moved on” because I have welcomed a new loving man into my life. But I have not “moved on”. This has also been an issue for the widows and widowers that have become my clients.
It puts so much pressure on how they are feeling, how they then interact with the new person in their lives, perhaps torn between feeling “guilty” (I will come back to that) and wanting to find happiness. And there is nothing wrong with wanting to find happiness, so long as it is not to “replace the loss”.
What about a parent who has lost a child. My own father broke down in the car park in the summer saying to me “I haven’t got over her yet”. He was referring to my little sister who had died the year after my husband. I said “Dad, please take that pressure off yourself, you will not get over her, but you will learn to live with her not longer physically here”. Of course, dad has not done the Grief Recovery Method programme to heal the pain of his loss, but I have. This is what I now do with others.
You see, when you do this programme you learn that “guilt” is used to commonly. It’s true meaning ‘means to imply harm’, so unless you have murdered someone, with regard to how you feel about the person who has died, where does the “guilt” come in?
I cover this on the course, and a few other things that it is important to mention here. Comparing. There is no comparing of people. We are all unique and on our own unique journey, yet we do this. It comes from as early as childhood. “Oh look, Robert’s walking but Hayley hasn’t started yet”. A typical conversation between two friends with babies born a day apart, yet here the lessons are being taught on how to compare. Next it will be “how are they doing in school”, to then of course, class mates, “where did you come in your spelling test”. I am sure that you get my point and can now see how this pattern has unfold in your own life.
And so when it then comes to inviting someone else into our lives, it is completely unfair to then compare the relationships. They are different, they are unique. The values might be the same/similar and this is why that might be important to notice for yourself. It was important for me that the person in my life values family, mine and his. Andrew, my late husband was a family man, my family mean the world to me and now Rob has arrived. His family mean the world to him. When beliefs and values are our too far out of sync, then you may have issues, for example if he had not had children. He would have no understanding of how important they are or attention that they may need with support extra.
If you have gone out to find someone because you do not like being alone, the pain of your loss hurts so much that you need someone to fill that space, you can easily find yourself with the wrong person or worse, someone who is ready to take advantage of your vulnerability. If this is you, you may find that you have been shown to “replace a loss” most likely again early in your childhood. (I will write my next article on loneliness).
For now, lets imagine that your pet hamster had died when you were 6 years old and you were so upset about Harry dying (that was my hamster!). You parents seeing you so upset say “don’t cry, we will get you a new one at the weekend”. Perhaps this continues with more crying and a parent then offers a biscuit. Confused by the words, “this will make you feel better,” the child eats the biscuit.
The child feels different, not better. You have stopped the natural grieving process. What an opportunity was missed for your parents to have had a conversation about grief. How you were feeling, acknowledge those feelings and ask about your relationship with Harry. This little friend who had meant a lot to you.
When this opportunity is missed, then the new hamster appears, you feel different. More importantly you have been taught to replace your losses. When you get older, and a boyfriend or girlfriend leaves you, guess what, you are out looking for the next one. If it is you breaking the relationship, do you look for the next person to invite into your life before you end the one you are in? Is there someone you can recognise who does this after divorce? Perhaps someone who has affairs?
By the offer of the biscuit from the person who you look up to, you can spend your life then looking for that one thing to “make you feel better” instead of acknowledging your grief. This can be wine, food, over exercising, or sex. This is called in the Grief Recovery Programme, Short Term Energy Relieving Behaviours. I had used red wine!
By doing the programme, I healed the pain of my loss of Andrew, which was accepting my hopes, dreams and expectations of what we were going to do after his transplant had now ended. I have referred to this in previous articles and podcasts as a “block” between us, between our connection, spiritually. This melted when I healed the pain in my heart.
No amount of psychoanalyzing will help when it is your heart that has been broken. To face this part of your life, you must connect with your feelings. It can be painful, uncomfortable and most do try to avoid it. But there you will find your peace, your healing and in the programme, a structure to take any other losses in your life through.
So you see, I have not moved on. To move on implies that you are leaving someone behind. After 31 years of marriage, I have history, two sons, and so many memories, therefore to “move on” is just not going to happen! I have healed my pain, and Andrew will always be in my heart, forever. What I have found is a way to ‘find a future’.
4 years after my husband’s death, I was lucky enough to find Rob. Without comparing! I have been blessed to find a loving caring man, who is secure in his own self and our relationship not to feel threatened by my life with Andrew, but lovingly gives me the space to grief when it shows up. And it can so easily.
We were watching a movie called “The Afterlife” (guess the clue was in the title). One scene at the end had me breaking down, with raw grief. As I sobbed, he put his arms around me and say “that’s been in there for a long time, let it out”. That my friend, meant the world to me. He did what I offer others, a safe space to grieve and release the pain, so healing can occur.
You see it is another part of this myth about thinking you “should be over this by now” because we do not know when events are going to show up in our lives that trigger this raw emotion.
I advise my clients that this can happen using the example of taking my boys and their partners (and one granddaughter) to Centre Parcs, just a year after Andrew had died. Pauline, my sister had past two months. I was trying to keep some small part of my family together, have something familiar that I could hold on to.
For the first two days, all was well, people were getting along ok then day three they went off with their partners (as they should) and I was ‘billy no mates’! It hit me then, my playmate was gone. Fortunately I was in the pool when this happened! I spoke with my friend Di, and she said just sit with it, if it doesn’t go then we may need to do some work on the loss. But it did, and as I acknowledged the loss I found peace and acceptance. Didn’t like the feeling, but it is what it is, or so I thought!
Not giving up, I took them all back the following year, and what I had to grieve then was my family holidays. The times when Andrew, Robert (son) and James (son) would go away. Andrew would relax and be playful (living with a long illness was extremely stressful for us all) and we created so many happy memories. Those days were also to be grieved. Yes, of course I will make more, but not with my little family. Can you see the layers that had to come to the surface in that process?
I do feel extremely blessed to have had all the times we had. We had made a point of doing this so the boys would have happy memories to look back on. I know that I for sure have.
And Now? Now I get to make more happy memories with Rob, and his two lovely children who are 9 and 11 as I write. For me, I get the best of both worlds. My time with Rob and my time with his family.
So I am not moving on, I am living my life. My life after loss.
With love
Diane x