two new clients started with me recently. both are going through very difficult breakups; a very typical therapy topic frankly. interestingly both are struggling with a lack of support from friends and family seemingly exhausted by their respective breakup drama. something many of us may have (silently, right?) experienced ourselves with friends that just can’t seem to “get over it and move on”. these are the complaints voiced repeatedly by my two new clients. they say their friends are now saying enough—move on!
but why? there is no victory lap, no blue ribbon won, no medal received for “getting over it” quickly. and what does that mean anyway? the truth is, none of us are “moving on”; we are all just moving through. every day.
so i say- no rush, no hurry. there is no set time frame for grief. move through. the grieving process is a tricky one. it travels in fits and spurts, with twists and turns. some days we progress, others we regress…still we move…sometimes we feel stuck, but that is just where we are In That Moment. we are still moving through our mourning process.
there is a saying in addiction recovery that sobriety isn’t always better but it is certainly different. i think that idea works with all changes in life. even though we rid ourselves of bad habit, a substance, relationship or job etc. and even though the motivation behind the change was a desire to improve our life in the larger sense, change itself doesn’t work like a magic wand casting rainbows and cupcakes in our wake.
working through loss, working through change is a process…the only guarantee we have is that our circumstances will be different than before. our only choice is to keep moving through life and experience it as it is, as it unfolds…
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