Episode 66: How to know where is life going.
7/3/24
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You are listening to the Life Reconstructed podcast with me, Teresa Amaral Beshwate, grief expert, best-selling author and widow. I’m so glad you’re here because in this and every episode, I shine a light on the widowed way forward.
Hello and welcome to episode 66. In this episode, I help you decipher where your life is going with four simple and practical tips that you can use starting today.
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I remember being new in grad school and feeling so excited to eventually graduate. I had a paper that listed all the classes I would need to take to get my degree in public health. I kept that paper in a sheet protector, and it was front and center when I opened my binder.
With each class completed I would mark off the class and celebrate that I was one step closer to my goal.
I knew exactly where I was, where I was headed, and the steps that I would take to get there. It was linear, step by step, and the future was crystal clear. Eventually I earned the degree.
Life can be a bit like that, too. Perhaps you knew you wanted to get married, maybe raise kids, eventually retire.
And with each goal, there were fairly obvious steps to take.
It’s nice when you know the goal and the steps that will get you there.
Widowhood is nothing at all like that.
Many a widowed person has said to me, “I don’t know where my life is going.”
“I don’t know what’s ahead.”
Or, “I don’t know what I want to do.”
If you’re the kind of person who has always been goal-oriented, it can be surreal to have no idea where you want to go.
It leaves you feeling unmoored, uncertain and uncomfortable.
While I wish it was as straight forward as getting a degree, where you can see the end goal and all you have to do is step your way there, the truth is it is almost never that simple.
It’s more a process of taking the very next logical step that seems right for you. And then the next, and the next.
Here are four tips that can help you.
1. Instead of asking yourself, “what do I want to do?” ask yourself instead, how do I want to feel? My guess is that you’d like to feel a greater sense of meaning and purpose. You’d probably like to feel calm, confident and certain. I offer those to get you started, but I hope you’ll answer the question for yourself: What do I want to feel?
2. Fast forward to a future version of you who feels exactly that way. Spend time with her, feeling how she feels. See what thoughts come up for you. Ask her for advice. Ask her for the immediate next step.
3. Experiment. Don’t be afraid to take a “wrong” step, because there is no such thing. Grieving is learning. Allow yourself to learn, to be a beginner. To take an experimental step in some direction, see how it feels, and then reevaluate. Make a promise right now that you’ll be kind to yourself, no matter what. Because often the worst-case scenario is how we’ll treat ourselves if things don’t go as planned, But you can decide right now that you’ll maintain an experimental mindset, evaluate, and keep learning, all while not making anything mean anything about you. You’re never a failure, you’re simply learning what’s right and what isn’t right for you.
4. Live the question. I read a book by Henri Nouwen and I wish I could remember the title, but he offered the notion of living the question. My interpretation is that when we don’t have answers, we can live the question, or live with the question. It removes any pressure of knowing the answer already. Some things aren’t for us to know, yet. We can make peace with not knowing yet when we think about living with the question.
I think that often times the task at hand is to grieve the loss: to feel the feelings, to set down the extra suffering, to examine our own thinking, to end the self-criticism and allow ourselves to be exactly as we are.
I don’t think there’s such a thing as skipping that part.
And the more we can allow ourselves to learn, the more the next logical step becomes clear.
I personally took what seemed to be next logical step after step for the first few years after my loss, without having any clear idea of the goal. Until one day, I had taken enough steps that the goal became clear to me.
And when I looked back at all the steps I had taken, I had been on the path all along.
All of those little steps made perfect sense. But I could only see it in hindsight.
I hope that you’ll ask yourself how you want to feel.
That you’ll spend time with your future self.
That you’ll choose an experimental mindset.
That you’ll promise to be kind to yourself no matter what.
That you’ll allow yourself to live with the question.
That you’ll believe in a future that’s beautiful and full of purpose.
And that you’ll take the next, tiny step toward it.
If this episode was helpful, please share it with a widowed friend. And remember that I believe in you, and I’m here for you. Take care.
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If you’ve found this podcast helpful, I invite you to check out my best-selling book, also titled Life Reconstructed. It has helped many thousands of people and it can help you, too. If you buy it on my website, you’ll also get the accompanying journal, plus a 3-part video series to help you feel better, starting right away. Simply go to https://www.thesuddenwidowcoach.com/lrbonusbundle to get started today.
