When You Are No Longer The Person You Were…
There is a strange kind of loss that doesn't always have a name. You may lose the person you thought you were, the moment you come under pressure. Health issues may take away few things that used to make you feel capable. Even grief works the same way: when someone leaves us, the version of you that existed around them goes too. Sometimes nothing has been taken away from the outside world at all. Something inside you has simply stopped making sense. Everyone used to come to you, you ran the business, kept the family together, always full of energy, and life, who always knew what to do. Then, life changed. And you can’t be that person anymore. Things get quite after that. You may start to talk less, see people less, say no to invitations, and quit telling stories. Pretty soon, it feels like everyone else kept going without you. Maybe the most painful part is that other people may continue to see the old you. They keep asking, "When are you going back to work?" or "When are you going to start doing that again?" or "Why don't you come along like you used to?" They usually mean well. But sometimes, what a person needs most is not to be reminded of who they were. They need someone to be curious about who they might become. Re-invention is not always dramatic. Most people think starting over has to be huge, a new job, a new city, or a whole new life. However, it can be a lot… Smaller. A man who spent his life managing people discovers that he loves teaching one young person. Maybe a woman who no longer do the work she once loved, discovers photography, the family organizer becomes the storyteller in the family. Or perhaps, it’s someone who feels like they’ve got nothing left to give, finds out their greatest gift was not what they did, but what they had learned along the way. Sometimes re-invention is simply finding a new place for an old strength. And sometimes, it’s discovering a strength you never had a reason to use before. The human being is larger than the role they happened to occupy. And this is where relationships matter. When someone we love is going through a period like this, our instinct can be to help them get back to the person they were. I guess, there is another possibility, we can give them permission to become someone new. Instead of saying: "You'll get back to normal." We might say: "I wonder what the next version of you is going to look like." The sentence above works very differently, it’s not saying the loss didn’t happen, nor saying everything’s ok. It simply leaves a door open. And sometimes a relationship becomes most valuable not when it reminds us of our past, but when it helps us imagine a future we cannot yet see. Think about the people in your own life. Is there someone who seems to have become quieter lately? Someone who used to be defined by a job, a role, a talent, a relationship or a particular ability… now doesn't quite know where they fit anymore? They probably don't need you to have an answer, they just want to know you still see them as a work in progress. And that maybe, one of the greatest gifts we can give another human being. The feeling that their story isn't over simply because one chapter has ended. So tell me, who in your life are you still seeing as the person they were, when perhaps they are quietly waiting to discover who they can become? Happy Saturday, Bob
Join the conversation