Pivot
My niece called me last night- I haven’t heard from her in months (you’ll read why) and she said needed a “direct response from someone level headed” (funny that was me). She keeps having the same experience over and over, so my thought is what are you supposed to be learning out of this? Why do you keep repeating the same thing or going through the same thing and what can you learn from it? I’m basically yoda okay?
Through our chat I realized she is missing home, missing what she knows as comfort and normal. My mom was her attachment figure and she no longer has that. She is living in a new place and she misses her Appalachian culture and mountain. There’s something magical about those mountains. But in my response I said your trauma is wanting you to go back to something familiar but part of you is wanting to move forward with your life (which isn’t back there). Your trauma wants you to stay because a familiar hell is better than an unfamiliar heaven. And this keeps people trapped in fear and frozen. Afraid to move. I suggested a meditation of releasing what is holding her back and visualizing big events in her life from an objective view. Facing her fears, her grief, and her loss. I also validated her- I know exactly how she feels- torn between the past self, the current self, and who you see yourself becoming. Anyone that changes generational patterns knows this. I will be writing more on this.
My good friend and colleague Lynn Wonders has created a program called Permission to Pivot. She is wonderful as a human and a trainer. I read this phrase when she published it and I thought oh I am doing that. I am giving myself permission to change. To let go of the old, abandoning the idea that I cannot abandon something- I must finish it- to this no longer serves me and I am releasing it. Go on out of my mind and body into the winds and up to the universe. Float away. Expectations gone.
Since my mom passed away my family of origin has fallen apart. My sister battled breast cancer right after our loss, my nephew was in the military and my niece was emotionally recovering from domestic violence, my other niece studying to be a social worker. My brother lost his wife, the same week we found out about my sister’s cancer, and he was not physically close to us either. We were not and are not in the same state, scattered all around. Grieving alone. We still are.
I moved myself and my family to a small beach town in FL with no intention of going back to a place where I worked so hard to get out of. If we’re sad we can at least be sad at the beach, am I right? My niece ran to the love of her life in SC (they are doing well). My nephew is getting a divorce to end an unhealthy marriage. And my sister is living life every day to the fullest. She is in a happy marriage with a man that truly loves her (2 previous toxic marriages). Oh my other niece said fuck social work and is getting an MBA - we all have to giggle about that.
So we are still in our grief but we’ve pivoted and are pivoting. We’ve pivoted to doing what is best for us…and we’re still figuring that out….. Who are we without our Nana?
