Copy
For more information, visit the website: www.griefconnect.com
View this email in your browser
Grief Perspectives
Scholar's Corner
Resource Review
Your Professional Library

Today, I Chose Loss

by Carolyn Streett
Editor’s Note: This month, we welcome as our lead columnist Dr. Hoy’s daughter, Carolyn. In June, she and her husband, Matthew, presented the Hoys with their first granddaughter, Sydney Reagan Streett. In this article, Carolyn poignantly reflects on her decision to lay aside her career as an editor at Southwest Airlines to become Sydney’s full-time stay-at-home mom, though she will continue to write freelance as time (and energy) permit. Grief after non-death losses—like the voluntary “laying down” of one’s career—are often disenfranchised in our society. We hope you enjoy Carolyn’s thought-provoking words. She can be reached at carolynstreett15@gmail.com
 
About two weeks ago, I chose loss. I walked into a meeting with my boss, explained that my priorities had shifted to my new baby daughter, and gave up a job I had worked so hard to get and so hard to excel at. 


 
I teared up as I hurried out of the building that day, and I cried the whole drive home. That familiar feeling started rising from the pit of my stomach. It was the same feeling I had in high school when Dad told me on the drive home from taking my SAT that my dog wouldn’t be there to greet me, that I had when my best friend called me crying because I needed to come home to say goodbye to my beloved childhood horse, that I had when I heard my grandpa and grandma agree to a DNR after two failed attempts to save his failing heart. The feeling of coming grief this time was different, yet also unmistakably the same.
 
Through months of painstaking deliberation, I chose this loss. The thing is, as I think about the end of this season of life, the work itself and the salary aren’t what I grieve. I grieve the time between 8 and 9 a.m. waiting for my colleague to arrive so we could walk down to get breakfast together—and how she became a friend on those walks. I grieve the “Hey, what do you want from Chick-Fil-A” at lunch break. I grieve the small talk before meetings about which dental surgeon is best or the first time staying with the grandkids for a whole week or the vet bill for the dog’s allergy testing. I grieve the secret huddles to pick a theme for someone’s birthday party that fits their personality, the instant messages about how to word an email to the boss. I grieve the team group text that I know I’m soon to be cut out of. I grieve the inside jokes I will no longer understand. I tell my colleagues that we still have Facebook and Snapchat and that I can still come visit, but under the hopeful façade, my heart hurts for the end of these relationships as I knew them.
 
I grieve the loss of much of my identity, too. Recently I removed this job from my Facebook profile, and I know I will soon have to update LinkedIn also. Being Sydney’s mom is the highest of callings, but somehow I still feel sad when I imagine telling people, “I’m a stay-at-home mom” instead of “I’m an editor for Southwest Airlines.” I grieve the loss of my corporate career and the purpose I had there.
 
Today I cleaned out my desk and turned in my badge. I packed up all the little recognition notes, the birthday cards, the letter from the CEO expressing his condolences for the death of my grandpa in 2016. I packed up the teddy bear I got in Canada and the magnet I got in St. Kitts—souvenirs from a life of traveling made possible by my job at Southwest. I packed away the mirror I decorated my first week, when I was a phone representative who needed to remember to smile as she trudged through complaint after complaint. I packed up five years of memories and laughs and friendships, and I wedged it all in the back of the car wherever there was space not taken up by the car seat and stroller and baby carrier and diaper bag. I made a right-hand turn instead of left, because only employees can go left. I looked in the mirror and saw the building I had spent more waking hours in than I had at home, and I grieved the loss of the only “adult life” I’d ever known.
 
But also in the rearview mirror was the face of my daughter. Her bright eyes are just learning to work together with her mouth to make a genuine smile. I was there for her first real smile about two weeks ago—and it melted my heart.
 
About two weeks ago, I chose loss. But through this loss of something I truly loved, I have gained someone I love even more.
 


The Author. Carolyn E. Streett is a full-time wife and mom who, as time and energy permit, blogs and writes freelance about life on “this side” of a corporate career. She can be reached at CarolynStreett15@gmail.com


Resource Review

 
Decision making is a huge aspect of our lives that often goes unexamined. In going along with our Bookshelf recommendation this month, The Next Right Thing, author Emily Freeman believes that there are three different ways that all people approach decisions. On her website, she offers a free and quick quiz to help you discover your approach to decisions.
 
Our decisions are a reflection of ourselves and it therefore seems worthwhile to more deeply understand what is at the core of how and why we make the choices we do. Click here to take the quiz.
Your Professional Library
Freeman, E. (2019). The next right thing: a simple, soulful practice for making life decisions. Grand Rapids, MI: Revell Books.
 
Reviewed by Molly A. Keating, MA, CT
Editor, GriefPerspectives

It is estimated that each person faces around 35,000 in a single day. While many of these are made unconsciously, we still face so many options, priorities, shoulds and coulds in our day that it seems decision-fatigue is inevitable.
 
Emily Freeman’s book, The Next Right Thing, offers a calming and practical approach to not only making a good decision but also figuring out which decision it is that needs our attention. This book does not need to be read in its entirety to be useful and I would argue that you could easily find a chapter that speaks to your decision-making process that would be radically changing if you were to follow it. Emily’s chapter titles are helpful all on their own and each one a great snippet of advice to incorporate into life. To give you a sneak peek, chapters like, “Be a Beginner,” “Know What You Want More,” “Choose Your Absence,” (makes me think of Carolyn’s choice) “Find a No Mentor,” and “Don’t Give Your Critic Words” are just some of the wonderful ideas Freeman offers and unpacks.
 
If you struggle to know your priorities, make decisions, or if you have regretted major choices in your life, this book offers simple and peaceful ways to look at how to approach the next decision you will face. Rarely have I found a book that helps me take a deep inner-sigh and relax so completely. This book will offer that to you and give you a structure and guideline that works for you as you move through your next decisions.
 
A friendly disclaimer: Freeman’s book is written with a Christian point-of-view that focuses specifically on the soul and offers a brief prayer and practice at the end of each chapter. She shares how her faith has helped shape her decision-making but it is not an essential or over-stated element within the wisdom and practicality that she offers. Readers of all faiths and belief systems can find unobscured help and guidance in Freeman’s writing.
Research that Matters
Grimell, J. (2019). Revisiting living in limbo to illustrate a pastoral psychological understanding of transition from military to civilian life. Pastoral Psychology,68, 393-405. doi: 10.1007/s11089-019-00881-6
 
Very little research has been published on the realities of grief accompanying experiences that might be socially considered “positive” such as the voluntary choice to leave one’s career illustrated in this month’s lead article. While there have been studies examining the grief of employees who were terminated, the literature is lacking in these experiences of grief I (Bill Hoy) have taken to calling “voluntary losses.” Such losses are common as individuals choose to leave a single life for marriage, voluntarily retire from a career, move from “double income no kids” to one with children, or change careers in hopes of achieving greater work-life balance. Though these life transitions are widely regarded as positive, they can certainly occasion feelings and thoughts of loss.
 
In the present study, Grimell, a scholar at the Amsterdam Center for the Study of Lived Religion (Vrije University) examines the very real losses described by military personnel as they face transition to civilian life at discharge. “This transfer from one context to another,” Grimell writes, “can include…a need for identity shift, cultivation of an alternate mind-set, social reorientation, a search for (post military) employment, grief and sadness due to the loss of camaraderie, an/or dxperiences of alienation and estrangement from civilian society” (p. 393). Grimell used the theoretical constructs proposed by pastoral theologians Donald Capps and Nathan Carlin in Living in Limbo: Life in the Midst of Uncertainty (2010), to analyze the content of interviews with 19 Swedish military staff who had voluntarily terminated their service rather than re-enlisting or signing new commissions.
 
What Grimell observed in the interview data were five overarching themes and a host of sub-themes. These included difficulties finding meaning in the new civilian life, sadness at the loss of connections with comrades, and feelings of emptiness and grief. There were also positive elements in the interviews including satisfaction with one’s legacy of service and appreciation of partner/spouse support in the transition. Perhaps the most important take-away for study and practice with grieving individuals, however, is that grief and sadness often accompany even positive experiences like one would assume is somewhat present in those who choose voluntary separation. Counselors will be wise to remember that well-meaning friends of these grieving individuals are likely congratulating them on their “new freedom” and perhaps showing profound disrespect for the social and emotional upheaval such “positive transitions” can usher in.
GriefPerspectives is published monthly by Grief Connect, Inc. Copyright ©2019. All rights reserved, including publication or distribution in any form, electronic or printed. For reprint permissions or suggestions for content, please email us at GriefResources@msn.com.
Copyright © 2019 GRIEF CONNECT INC, All rights reserved.
unsubscribe from this list    update subscription preferences 

Email Marketing Powered by Mailchimp