One recent Thursday, after wrapping up my work sessions for the week, I checked my phone. A thoughtful message from a friend pierced a pain that had been simmering inside, prompting instant tears that melted me into the ground. My head had been hurting for days. I was exhausted, and I knew there were emotions I was neglecting despite spending my workdays helping others process their own. There wasn’t time or space for me to feel what I was feeling; it was too big.
For weeks leading up to this, it was as if my brain and body decided for me that my schedule didn’t have enough room to feel such heavy emotion and tried to keep it on lockdown inside, as it increased in pressure each day. I was facing a transition that wouldn’t happen for months—a transition that both made my heart swoon with excitement and also pressed on old wounds. Trying to navigate this mixture of joy and heartache was simply more than I could hold. On that Thursday, it was as though something inside of me knew: You can unravel now, there’s no more work for the week. There’s space to feel this.
And oh, did I feel it!
In piecing together the transition in front of me, I had been so focused on where I was going that I hadn’t spent much time thinking about how I would end well before getting there. My tears on that day anchored me in the present moment with an anticipatory grief I hadn’t yet felt. Before trying to organize my thoughts or process what was happening inside, the depths of my soul spoke for themselves: This is going to hurt. These words fell out of my mouth as I tasted the salty tears that were now freely flowing.
In that moment and the days that followed, I realized that for me, in this transition, ending well would mean being present in all facets of the transition—the grief and the gratitude, the joy and the sorrow. This is tricky for me because there are parts of me that want to skip ahead to what’s to come, mentally stepping into the future before it’s here because that’s not as risky or painful as feeling the full weight of an ending. These parts of me think this is a brilliant plan, because eventually I’ll get where I’m going and will seemingly have bypassed the whole painful grief thing.
What my tears told me on that Thursday was that there is more to this ending than I thought, and bypassing any of it is not going to work. The goodbyes I will need to say, the closure I will need to honor, and the losses I will need to grieve can’t go unacknowledged or unfelt. Along with the joy and excitement of moving into a new season, these things will hurt, and rightfully so. Those tears helped me see that the sting I’m starting to feel doesn’t need to be ignored, but instead actually needs to be embraced, for me to feel the full weight of gratitude and sweetness in this transition.
I realized that neglecting uncomfortable emotions was impacting how much I could tune in to and feel other facets of what was happening inside.
Without feeling the full weight of grief, I don’t have open space to feel the full weight of gratitude.
Without honoring the depth of sadness and sorrow, I can’t enjoy and delight in the heights of joy. My tears on that Thursday were pleading with me to give them room at the table, sharing space with all the other emotions welling up inside of me. For two weeks I cried each day, amazed at how much I had been shutting off and tuning out.
Each day that I let those tears speak, I noticed a lightness increase inside. What I am feeling is still complex, and now there’s room to feel it all, and the more I feel it, the deeper I can breathe. And even if those tears aren’t speaking every single day now, there’s room for them to speak and be heard when they need to, reminding me that ending well means being right where I am, and feeling all facets of that place. My heart doesn’t need to skip ahead to bypass the ending and get to the new beginning. The new beginning will be all the sweeter when anchored alongside the fullness of the ending that came before it.
Anna Christine is a trauma-informed therapist passionate about cultivating healing spaces, exploring the intersections of pain, stuck-ness, and wrestling through faith journeys that are not linear paths. Her work draws from interpersonal neurobiology, polyvagal theory, and parts work, alongside thoughtful theological reflection and contemplative practices from her second master’s degree in biblical studies and her time spent in a spiritual formation fellowship. Her writing, podcast, and free integrative resources can be found on www.acseiple.com.
