Life has a way of landing things on our path,
Out of the blue.
Reminders that we can't plan for everything.
Reminders of what really matters in life.
Reminders that if we need to stop for a while,
The rest of life can wait.
These things can also be the biggest challenges to stay anchored to ourselves and what we can control.
Because when they land,
It is so easy to get caught up in what-ifs,
I should have,
And if-onlys.
I had just one of these things land a while back.
My son's father,
Who lived on a different continent,
Died.
I did not see it coming.
And when it did,
I had to drop everything.
I had to trust others to care for my daughter,
Pause my business,
And take my son by the hand so we could take a journey together and say our goodbyes.
Doing this was a heart and gut decision that my head then had to figure out how to make happen within a short period of time,
And without the funds.
Stepping forward with trust was the best thing I could have done and made all the difference.
Facing the situation,
Experiencing the emotion of it,
Connecting with friends and family over there,
And supporting my son was intense,
Painful,
And incredibly special.
However,
Stepping into the fold in a crisis and doing what needs to be done,
Though not easy,
Is often something we just do because we have to.
The challenge following that is to allow emotions,
Memories,
Thoughts,
Practicalities,
And so on,
To surface that couldn't in the intensity of the event and the aftermath.
It is so easy to just step back into the stream of life and not give space to what needs processing.
But that comes at a cost.
A cost that builds over time in the depths of ourselves and will emerge one way or another without us having a handle on it.
So I had to let myself have pockets of space and time to process as I started to pick up other bits of day-to-day life again once we returned.
In fact,
I had to intentionally carve those spaces out.
I had to let myself feel the full reality of the pain and the loss,
Of past decisions made,
Of roads taken,
And the impact on my son of it all.
To be able to find my best way through this,
I had to check in with what I needed to grant myself.
Loving kindness,
Trust,
Willingness,
And presence.
Loving kindness,
Being gentle with myself and practicing self-care as I processed through it all.
Trust that it is a process and,
Like everything,
Would shift,
Evolve,
And in time,
I would get back into my stride again.
Willingness to be honest with myself about how I was doing so that I could respond.
And presence,
To hijack my brain when it wanted to do the what-ifs,
I should have,
And if-onlys.
This last one is something that coaching has helped me greatly with.
Amongst all this emotion,
Coaching helped me realize that what-ifs are a bit like my daughter's eczema,
Which people say is not a rash that itches,
But that it's an itch that rashes.
So it's something we bring out and create by engaging with it.
So if I had let my brain get caught up in these unhelpful thoughts of things that I couldn't do anything about,
Which did happen from time to time,
I would inflame a rash.
I would cause myself unnecessary pain and suffering,
And then would just want to keep on scratching.
It's a strange analogy perhaps,
But it makes a lot of sense to me.
And so it's a powerful reminder that when what-ifs come up to breathe,
I need to stop scratching the itch and bring myself back to here and now,
Choosing loving-kindness instead.
I wonder,
What are the key things that you grant yourself in the face of life and all its challenges?
