An invitation to return to yourself

An invitation to return to yourself

I have received a lot of emails recently from people asking for my help and a lot of these emails have something in common.  Responding to these people has prompted me to  share my thoughts here…because maybe you need to hear this too.

These people have been specifically talking about the ‘hole’ left by those who have died – whether it was a partner, a parent, a friend, a pet.  They talk about the loneliness they feel.  They talk about the depression.  They talk about feeling like they have lost the one person in their life who loved them most, who filled their days, who understood them, or who they could talk to about anything.  Or all of the above.  And they want to know how to fill this space.  Some even try to work out who would best be able to fill this space.

God knows I remember that emptiness after the deaths in my life, particularly my dad’s.  And I remember the desire to fill it and make the feeling go away.  In fact I remember lots of different emptinesses in my life (often not death related) that I wanted to fill – with experiences, with stuff, often with other people.

And I’ll tell you what I told all of them (and what I tell myself whenever I need to hear this, which I often do).

It ALL comes back to self-love.  I know I say that a lot…but it is for a very good reason.  It can be easy to put down emptiness, loneliness, isolation, lack of conversation to those that we feel are missing – but often when others die (or leave in some way) it shows up things that are going on for us, in our relationships with ourselves and the way we feel about ourselves. And this can be the opportunity to do something about it.  Maybe your feelings about yourself, your inability to be alone, or your low self-esteem were hidden, unseen by you and others, because you managed to fill that space – that space in you – with other people.  Maybe you did it for a long time…your whole life thus far even.  It might seem not to make sense – you might think that this space can only be filled by someone else…or the person back who left it vacant….. but, in my experience, any time we find a space that we think was filled by others and needs to be filled by others ….what we have really found is a space we need to fill ourselves.  Maybe we always needed to.  And taking some time to properly and practically care for and love ourselves is the place to start.

So this is your invitation…should you choose to accept it… to let this death bring you back to YOU.  To bring you back to the most important relationship bar none in your life.  To a greater level of self-love, care and awareness than ever before.  It might seem like a damned awful way to have to start this journey…..but there are two things to consider.  Firstly, most of us have to have the holes, the cracks, the true pains shown to us very clearly before we will do anything real about them….and it can take something pretty huge to do that for us.  And secondly, take this invitation and let it be a gift from your person who died.  Let their death be something that guides you back to you, to your own heart, to more self-love than you have ever known. To knowing and loving yourself truly.  Because isn’t that an incredible legacy for them to leave behind?

This is my invitation to you.  It is up to you whether you take it or not.  And if you do it will be one of the most rewarding journeys you ever go on and the one of the most powerful ways you can honour those in your life who have died.

Kristie

xx

Tagged as: bereavement, death, grief, self-love