My adult son just visited us for a couple of weeks. He grocery-shopped for us. He cooked his own breakfast when he awoke later than we did. He picked up the pooch from doggie-daycare.<\/p>\n
During the day when I was seeing clients in my home office, the only way I could tell he existed was by hearing an occasional padded footstep or two as he gently moved about upstairs. When I did see him, he greeted me with a smile and a hug.<\/p>\n
Three days ago, he loaded up his van with his quirky possessions, including his newly purchased used harpsichord. Youthful fitness shone on his sweaty skin as he stashed the final box of books and climbed up to the driver\u2019s seat.<\/p>\n
Set for his next big adventure\u2014living near some artistic friends from college in the Hudson Valley\u2014he sat poised to drive away from my Austin, Texas home to live far away once again<\/p>\n
Sweat dribbled down my spine and soaked through my dress as I stood next to the van in the sweltering Texas heat while he fiddled with his iPhone charger and battery-powered fans. (Driving cross-country in the summer with no A\/C. Yikes!)<\/p>\n
Though hot and tired, I watched him being unselfconsciously him<\/em>. I silently invited his one-of-a-kind essence to burrow itself deeply into my mom-heart, and savored the delicious yet bittersweet moment.<\/p>\n Smiles. Cheers. Tears on both sides.<\/p>\n A sturdy, sweaty hug.<\/p>\n Our embrace held a multitude:<\/p>\n \u201cHave fun! I know you\u2019ll do great! \u2026 I\u2019ll miss you!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThanks! I\u2019ll miss you too!\u201d<\/p>\n A few more blinked-back tears.<\/p>\n Then he drove away<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n Today is quiet. Too quiet.<\/p>\n While I\u2019m typing this sentence, I anticipate footsteps above my head and there are none. When I go to the kitchen to make lunch, there\u2019s no sing-song hello while my son scrambles late-breakfast eggs. When I finish writing this evening, I won\u2019t feel Bach-fugue-piano-practice vibrating the floor beneath my feet.<\/p>\n The silence teems with absence.<\/p>\n My throat tightens. My chest feels heavy. Unbidden tears roll down my cheeks.<\/p>\n My day doesn\u2019t screech to a halt, and I\u2019m not debilitated. I simply feel an ache that arises to fit the circumstances: I miss that boy.<\/p>\n My feelings move through more easily when I understand what emotion my tears express:<\/p>\n Bereft = deprived of something; lacking something needed or expected.<\/em><\/p>\n That\u2019s it\u2014my tears express bereftness. With clarity, a strong wave of natural missing and yearning moves through. I cry harder, and then I\u2019m finished.<\/p>\n Blowing my nose and wiping my tears, I feel melancholy but okay. My throat is clear and my chest expands.<\/p>\n Then more tears come, this time pouring out of the expansiveness in my chest.<\/p>\n These tears express a different sort of ache.<\/p>\n Grateful = deeply appreciative of benefits received; thankful.<\/em><\/p>\n Once more, clarity ushers in a fullness of emotional expression. Tears that flow and have meaning.<\/p>\n All at once I am:<\/p>\n More nose-blowing. More tear-wiping.<\/p>\n With clear mind and full heart, I begin typing again with raw and enlivened attention.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n I\u2019m fortunate because when my husband comes home tonight, I\u2019ll tell him about my bereftness and he\u2019ll hug me while I cry some more. He\u2019ll share his father-version of missing a son.<\/p>\n Then we\u2019ll share dinner and conversation, just the two of us, missing our son\u2019s enthusiastic appreciation of our best-on-the-planet-cooking.<\/p>\n And we will be okay.<\/p>\n Sharing our bereft-and-grateful emotions allows them to move through and enrich our lives. Yes\u2014enrich<\/em> our lives.<\/p>\n Sometimes pain, like this bereftness lets us know that we\u2019re alive. That we\u2019ve been lucky enough to receive something so wonderful that we miss it when it\u2019s gone. Bereftness, experienced, yields gratitude and expansion. That\u2019s how emotions work when they are allowed to be.<\/em><\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n Many people I come into contact with simply don\u2019t get to share or even feel this kind of bereftness, because our culture disparages sadness in all its forms. Everywhere I turn, I read about one technique after another for \u201cmastering sadness,\u201d \u201cconquering grief,\u201d or \u201cinoculating oneself against feeling bad about misfortunes.\u201d<\/p>\n Somehow feeling sad has become equated with being unproductive or weak. As if being contemplative instead of productive for a minute is dangerous. (It\u2019s not. It\u2019s healthy.) As if being in need of support by another is silly. (It\u2019s not. It\u2019s a wired-in human need.)<\/p>\n Many people think there\u2019s something wrong with them for feeling sad, so they become anxious and don\u2019t even realize they\u2019re simply sad.<\/p>\n Or they distract themselves because it\u2019s silly to feel sad over something so small, and the sadness goes underground.<\/p>\n Or they feel alone with their bereft feelings, ashamed of sharing them with anyone, so the sadness grows or morphs into depression.<\/p>\n If we can\u2019t turn to each other in times of non-tragic, fleeting sadness like the bereftness I felt upon my son\u2019s departure, it\u2019s no wonder we struggle so with grief when big losses happen. If we begin to get comfortable with our smaller, non-tragic sadnesses, we\u2019ll be better able to handle the big ones when they come along.<\/p>\n Learning how to feel our feelings is what helps us bear hard times.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Not building some resilience muscle that sustains an illusion that we can become impervious to pain.<\/p>\n Healthy expressions of sadness move the sadness through<\/em> us, rather than leaving it stuck in our bodies. Sadness that moves generates healing, rejuvenation, and growth. The natural adaptive feeling that emerges from sadness expressed<\/em> is gratitude.<\/p>\n Our world could use more of these qualities.<\/p>\n So I share my story with you to grant you permission to acknowledge and make room for your life\u2019s natural sadnesses, large and small. I invite you to contribute to a healthier world by expressing your own emotions\u2026<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My adult son just visited us for a couple of weeks. He grocery-shopped for us. He cooked his own breakfast when he awoke later than we did. He picked up the pooch from doggie-daycare. During the day when I was seeing clients in my home office, the only way I could tell he existed was by hearing an occasional padded footstep or two as he gently moved about upstairs. When I did see him, he greeted me with a smile and a hug. Three days ago, he loaded up his van with his quirky possessions, including his newly purchased used […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":756,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-strong-people-grieve"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deepcenterforgrowth.com\/candyce-counseling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/755","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deepcenterforgrowth.com\/candyce-counseling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deepcenterforgrowth.com\/candyce-counseling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deepcenterforgrowth.com\/candyce-counseling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deepcenterforgrowth.com\/candyce-counseling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=755"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/www.deepcenterforgrowth.com\/candyce-counseling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/755\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":765,"href":"http:\/\/www.deepcenterforgrowth.com\/candyce-counseling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/755\/revisions\/765"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deepcenterforgrowth.com\/candyce-counseling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deepcenterforgrowth.com\/candyce-counseling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deepcenterforgrowth.com\/candyce-counseling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deepcenterforgrowth.com\/candyce-counseling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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What kinds of small or large life circumstances make you feel bereft? Do you have ways to express your sadnesses when they arise? Do you have anyone to help you with these feelings?<\/em><\/h4>\n