control is the counterfeit currency of anxiety...

i heard someone say this today and it stopped me in my tracks

All we are looking for in a life with loss on board, is some sense of control, no? Life threw us this unexpected turn (ok, pile of, insert-expletive-here) and we keep recalibrating to find true north. Or new north. Or a way up for air!

Photo by J Lee on Unsplash

This week in group, I was moved by how many in community could name ways that anxiety seemed to suddenly start running the show as they were experiencing grief — full tilt throttle! Directing, leading and starring center stage. Like Klieg lights on opening night.

While we are learning to live with our loss and looking for some forward movement - looking to the future when we have lost a piece of how we imagined our story was meant to unfold, can upend our sense of security and certainty. Folks used words like untethered, afraid, exhausted, out of control, scared to death…unrecognizable.

Sound familiar?

I recall having a conversation back when with a friend who had also lost her Mom. She is a brilliant therapist and we were talking about a workshop I was hosting. We had a bit of a beef about using the terms “motherless vs. unmothered”.

When my mother Ellen died suddenly, I felt “unhooked” from her. “Unmoored tracks for me,” I told her. “I have a Mom, I am not motherless," I shared. She lives on in me and with me in so many ways. I can say this with now, a few decades of learning and living with this in my rear view mirror — and countless grief trainings now under my belt. I can tell you with certainty, I could not have made heads or tails of this concept when it all went down in ‘93.

Separated from the mothership permanently by the physical lifeline became my truth — but connected to so much that remains in my head, heart and DNA that is her love and how to live a life according to Mom.

I was called a “worry wort” as a kid. “You worry about worrying”, was something I heard a lot. Nobody named this anxiety for me. When the worst happened and my Mom died, I imagined all the bad things I catastrophized could not only come true - but that more could land on my doorstep.

I felt, “anxious grief” - but had no name for it.

We can feel “anxious grief” because we are sent into an unknown and vulnerable future we never imagined for ourselves. Claire Bidwell Smith’s book Anxiety The Missing Stage of Grief was the first place I made the connection, because she made it FOR me! A brilliant teacher, mentor and now cohort of mine, Claire is the first therapist to name symptoms related to loss — from panic attacks to sleep disorders and social phobias and connect them to grief. It was decades after I experienced my own motherloss, that her incredible book landed in my lap. I was using it as as part of my learnings and BOOM!

One of the most debilitating parts of missing my Mom was the life that was continuing to happen as I lived life without her. First it was when I became a mother. I wanted to share the minutia of their every burp, smile and milestone. I went to pick up the phone instinctively only to remember over and over again that she was gone. I always worried I might die. Or worse, they might.

As a writer, I had written lots about my Mom. On her birthdays and death anniversaries, I continued to share her alongside some of my griefy discoveries. How I was living forward and bringing her along — and also missing her like hell. I had called her Grandma Ellen to my girls so I could invoke her wisdom and ways, infusing her into their lives and hearts.

It was not until I read Claire’s book and an account of a young man who was experiencing panic attacks because he had unresolved issues with the father, who had died. Now what? The son now felt as if their outstanding issues could now never be repaired. Somewhere mid-book, Claire offers the idea to this client to write to him.

Each chapter ends with the opportunity to check in on your anxiety level - and to workshop the concepts yourself. It was here that I began to write TO my Mom. It changed me and the trajectory of my healing journey. And quelled heaps of anxiety. While this is no replacement for telling her myself, the idea that I could connect in this way - I believe, cellularly, was and is and has been life altering.

Have you written to your loved one? I ask my clients to do this. Writers and non-writers alike. I invite you to as well. And share it with me, if having a story witness may feel good! Maybe as a form of accountability.

Date the page. Check in with the way you feel before and after. Sometimes this can help to profoundly create what is called a continuing bond. We need to carry our love for them forward. When this love has no landing pad, I believe it comes out sideways. For some, like me, this manifested in anxiety. And we can pay dearly by not naming and acknowledging it.

Can you give yourself permission to do this today?

FEAR IS A NATURAL REACTION TO MOVING CLOSER TO THE TRUTH — Pema Chodron