#231: Grief
"Grief is our response to loss of any kind"
These words opened my experience of grief.
Before, I tiptoed delicately around it.
I observed others grief from afar, daring not to touch it, not feeling worthy too.
I’d tell myself:
“Grief is only for people who have had a close family member die.”
“Grief has to be really bad, I’ve never had it really bad.”
“I’m not allowed to feel sad over ‘minor’ losses, others have had it far worse than me.”
These stories, like those I’ve told myself about mental health over the years, all stop me experiencing the pain of loss, by sizing my life against others.
Yet if “grief is experiencing a loss of any kind” I am given permission to feel sad about many types of loss in my life.
How do I mourn the loss of a relationship
How do I grieve the life I thought I might have with a person
How do I let go of the future I saw for myself in a particular role
How do I say goodbye to the city I lived in
How do I accept that the friendship that was so important to me once, has changed now
How do I cry for the family member who died
How do I mourn my pet that’s no longer with us
Loss shows up all over our lives.
I’ve noticed this recently as I have been grieving different areas of my life.
Turning 32, I felt sad that my twenties are officially over and in a moment I felt the pain of mourning my youth. I saw a young guy run past me with his top off, effortlessly toned with skin yet to be marked by age. I saw my name in the 30-39 category at Park Run, realising my next significant birthday will be 40. I won’t look like that young guy again, I won’t be 25 again.
In a long period of reflection on Sanctus, I’ve grieved all that I said the business would be. All that it has become and all that it has not. Amongst the many wins, there are many losses. I’ve grieved that I once saw myself as The Richard Branson of Sanctus, there for all my life. That George and I would always retain ownership. That me and the early team would work there for our whole careers. Stories that I believed wholeheartedly at the time, that for one reason or another have died.
As my identity has shifted from mental health campaigner, Sanctus founder, LinkedIn everyday personal brand poster. I’ve let go of the vision I had of me being a Steven Bartlett/Simon Sinek-like thought leader with a perfect podcast and £100,000 a year in speaker fees. That fame was once my dream, it was where my mind wandered too. Currently that feels more like a nightmare. I’ve let go of that vision.
I once saw myself making £10,000,000 from a Sanctus acquisition and buying a property on the river in Putney. You never know, but I’ve grieved a rich life in London, with a 3 story townhouse in West London. Grieved for a city that I financially and emotionally don’t feel like I can belong in.
I don’t know if I am very good at grieving. I have done lots of reflection and allowed myself moments of sadness to what has changed. Some days I have let myself wallow, others I have forced myself into moving on.
I’m not sure when it happens, when the grief of loss ends, for some life-events I imagine it never does. For others, there seem to be clear moments when we can move on.
What I do know is that I’d like to let more grief in. Allow for sadness, allow for pain, allow for anger at what could have been.
And when those feelings have been allowed, when I know I’ve felt them fully and let them touch all the places they needed to. To let them go, to let them fly away and not weigh me down for wherever I am called to next.
I’d like to see a world where we do more to celebrate our wins, appreciate what’s gone well. Celebrate fully, with love and joy.
I’d equally like to see a world where we deeply commiserate our losses too, accept what is no longer there and be ok with feeling as sad as we need to.
I’d like us to accept all forms of grief and not judge one that is more “important” than another. You can’t compare the loss of a parent to the loss of a job. Yet you can compare the emotions of the human experiencing either. They’re both grief.
I write this today to grieve those losses I have mentioned above and to allow that for anyone reading too.
Cheers,
James x
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