From the nano second somebody dies those who are left behind enter a new path and that path is something we call Grief.
It is a journey no one wants to go on. A journey that is indescribable to anyone who has not experienced it. A journey that can be so painful you wonder if you will ever survive, let alone find peace.
In the lead up to the live webinar with Dying Matters in their #Iremember campaign week I began to remember the journey I had been on personally over many years that now led to that night.
I found myself writing in a way that was powerfully reflecting the journey of grief. Firstly, that of my loss, my husband, my love, my world and then that of my children who lost not only their father but also their beloved step-father within a matter of a few years and the excruciating pain they both endured.
For many years I could not focus on my work, my purpose, my passion. I had to be there for the girls, my mission was to get them into their adult lives healthy, healed, and happy. I just knew I had to be there.
Then I knew I had to take time out to enable myself to navigate my own ‘grief garden path’. Nothing stops grief, it is a powerful force and eventually, we must go through it in order to emerge stronger and with inner peace.
My dog Ben was a big part of my journey of grief.
Ben got me out of the door, he lay with me at night and joined me when I cried and thought I would never stop.
A year into this journey I met my now husband. He would tell you that when we met, I was like a shadow. Dressed in black and barely able to function. It is not easy to fall in love with someone who is in love with someone else. Who will always be in love with someone else?
But
It is possible to fall in love and still love someone if that makes sense? I never thought love like that was possible twice in a lifetime but it truly is.
As the evening was approaching, I was reflecting on the key message of the week. It was #Iremember and like me people started sharing their memories.
But then I started to feel quite terrified.
I have been on this journey and no one knows who on earth Julie New is! I started to feel like an imposter waiting to be found out! People wouldn’t be interested in what I had to say and as the week began, I was quite paralysed by yes you have guessed it FEAR.
I made myself look at the fear
The first personal growth and development book I ever read in 1998 was ‘Feel the fear and do it anyway’ by Susan Jeffers. The crux of this book is that you may as well do something, the thing you are fearing anyway because you will get a result either way. You will learn something or realise something and so I had firm words with myself explaining to myself that I was just a bit scared, but I had to feel the fear and do it anyway.
Suddenly, my fear was reducing. I was coming out of an uncomfortable comfort zone I had been in for a very long time. The final part of the jigsaw.
As I entered my coaching space, a beautiful garden room I call ‘Hope HQ’ on the evening of the live webinar I came face to face with the large print I have on the wall. It is Picasso’s ‘Dove of peace’. It came to me that as well as harmony, happiness, joy and love being the result of the work I do with people after difficult and sometimes traumatic life change, the overwhelming thing they get is a sense of peace.
After the webinar was over, I realised that I have found personal peace. Peace that passes all understanding. A peace that only comes when you have truly explored every part of your ‘grief garden path’. A journey no one wants to go on and subconsciously can avoid for a long time.
It is a journey we need support on, and I am 100% able now to give 100% in my unique, precious and valuable new chapter recovery work. I am here ready and waiting when you are ready and have a network of professionals and wider support that I can connect you with when you are ready.
