Impermanence. One thing we can be certain of in life is that nothing is permanent. Everything is borrowed, and we only have it for a limited time before it leaves us or returns to its original state. We borrow from Mother Nature daily; our food (well, good food) comes from the land; we borrow it to nourish us, and then it returns to the land. The seasons are borrowed, leaving and returning with the cycles, and the sun and moon are borrowed daily, leaving and returning as the sun rises and sets. Our breath, health, minds, and bodies are borrowed.
Even love, laughter, joy, anger, and grief are borrowed.
Temporary moments of emotion rise to the surface and become present. We experience and feel them, and that moment becomes a fleeting memory. Some emotions are more complex and lasting than others, but even grief comes in waves like a high tide overwhelming the sand and consuming her. Then she retreats and lays still until one day, one moment, it comes back to you with a powerful force, crushing, consuming, and stopping you in your tracks.
The hard truth.
We naturally resist this feeling of impermanence due to our attachments to material things, our belongings, or even the careers we have worked so hard attaining, as well as the people and relationships we’ve built, nurtured, and loved. But with attachment comes a skewed sense of what is important.
We become more focused on control, keeping the thing close, protected, and under a watchful eye to ensure we don’t lose it. But everything is borrowed. We can’t control everything and every outcome in our lives, and when we do, we miss out on the things that really matter: joy, love, forgiveness, healing, growth, gratitude, and fulfillment.
Your car will break down, you will change jobs, you will move houses, and you will lose someone you love. So, instead of worrying, controlling, and avoiding the inevitable, how about accepting, embracing, and being more present and compassionate with your emotions and growth journey.
Accepting impermanence.
Once we accept this impermanence, our minds and bodies become more present, and we can live with a grateful mindset—gratitude for what we do have at that moment—the food in our bellies, the sunshine on our faces, the love in our hearts, the family around our table, the clients, the team, the work, and that damn car…. that we know will break down one day.
We may even find moments of gratitude in our grief. We begin to look at our grief as love that has nowhere to go—grief that is simply love persevering.
Grieving reimagined.
By accepting that we are on borrowed time and the impermanence of absolutely everything, our lives can be transformed into a new world full of daily adventures, new experiences seeking to be discovered, new memories to be created, and freed-up mental energy that goes towards healing, growth, and fulfillment.
Grief is still grief, and we are designed by nature to feel all our complex emotions and respond to loss as negative. But with this acceptance, we create a new response system and reaction to loss and grief. We will grieve with gratitude, caring for the grief with a loving heart, tending to it gently rather than carrying the grief. Carrying a weight, tension, or friction that weighs us down and consumes us daily makes the void of loss more expansive than we can manage. So care, don’t carry.
I am always in a state of grieving and healing, and the emotions continue to be borrowed. They come and go at various moments triggered by stress, a memory, a photo, or even a smell, but with this reframe and acceptance of impermanence, I can let go easier of the things that don’t serve my healing, and now I can co-exist with my grief. I can experience both joy and gratitude while also experiencing grief.
For more content, please follow @amusebouchelife on Instagram, and I hope that you find comfort in my words if you, too, are experiencing loss and are grieving someone you loved.