Mark Brown
I trust you had a good week. But I wonder if your reality this week did not meet your ideal week. What do you do when this happens? How do you respond when your ideal expectations and actual reality do not match? In the past, I chose to ignore this gap. Most times I returned to my busy life and never gave any thought towards this.
However, over the past few years I have learned what I actually feel when the two do not match: sadness. Sadness is simply grieving a loss. When my ideal and real do not match I experience a loss. Why do I bring this up? Two reasons: First, when I do not allow space to grieve this loss, I lose the ability to live an integrated life. Second, I miss out on being human. We were created with a need to grieve loss. This is what it means to be human.
Over the holidays I had an ideal that was working for me until I tested positive for COVID. How did I deal with this? I wanted to share with you a helpful process. Step one is to allow yourself to feel the sadness and share this with a safe friend. I missed out connecting with adult children and grandchildren during Thanksgiving and this was a loss. Step two is to accept this loss and embrace any good that exists. In my example, I accepted the reality of not spending time with family but also saw the positive that I did not expose anyone, I had mild symptoms, and my future business trip was not disrupted. Step three is to accept the new reality. In my case, I accepted the reality of not being able to spend time with my family.
When I give myself space to feel sadness like this, I live a healthier and more integrated life.
