Ambiguous loss
We don’t talk about it enough, or much at all. We wake, we breathe, we go about our days, we sleep. We repeat. In that hustling and shuffling about while being human, there are clear gains. And clear losses. Birth, death. Life lived, life ended. Clear and obvious starts and stops to some or many aspects of our lives.But what of the less clear, the ellipses of some stories that we begin, we don’t ever really quite finish. The losses where we never really had the thing or the person to lose in the first place?•Pregnancies that didn’t result in the baby•Babies that may never come to be•The guy or the girl standing next to someone else, not next to you•The healthy loved one that is now fighting illness, disease•A family system full of struggle and heartache versus safety and togetherness•A conversation that may never happen•Hoping for one job, one career, but having to choose another•The dream being lived by someone else•An apology that never arrives•A career that drains versus inspiresSo many ambiguous ways that we can experience loss that may be harder for the mind to make sense of. Losses that may give the mind a feast of what ifs, what could be thoughts to chew, to macerate, to stew...But that is the mind, all of the chewing, macerating, and stewing.The heart does not do any of those things. It is simpler in its process. It feels, it exists, it just is... without the need. The yearn. The questioning. The ambiguity.The heart holds our truths. Our grief. Our gratitude. And our love.But love is not a Hallmark card. It is not emptiness, or “this will do”. The heart, when we allow ourselves to go there, holds you, holds your true essence, with the same delicate nature of a newborn placed in your arms.There is no judgment. Only the safe comfort to feel the grief, to create the new hope, and to start anew again and again.Allow your mind to bow to the wisdom of your heart. That is where the pain and confusions of the ambiguity will find its solace. And its healing.