Hello and welcome to Dear grief guide.
A podcast where each week I answer one anonymous letter from a listener feeling lost, stuck,
heartbroken or overwhelmed in the midst of grief.
My name is Shelby Fercitya.
I'm a grief coach and author and I'm here to help you create a life you love from the
life lost forced you to live.
Let's get to today's letter.
Dear grief guide, I'm mourning the loss of a dream.
I've always wanted a certain piece of land dozens of mountain or forest acres so I can
live out in nature.
But for various reasons, I'm not sure my dream is ever going to come true.
For nearly two decades I've battled this longing, hoping my dream would someday come true,
but now I feel crushed.
I have mourned and grieved the loss of this dream several times, but it keeps coming back.
I feel haunted by it.
I've tried to pray away my desire, love the land and how I do have and make my current
space into a beautiful paradise.
I've tried gratitude and optimism and seeing what I have with new eyes.
For so many years I've tried it all.
But just when I think I've gotten over my grief, it comes boiling up again and I go through
periods where I can't stop thinking about the land I've always wanted.
While this dream could possibly still be in my future, nothing is guaranteed.
I feel like I can't fully grieve because the dream isn't entirely dead, just mostly dead.
It's like an open wound that will never heal all the way.
What should I do?
Thanks.
Grieving Dreamer.
Hi there grieving Dreamer.
I really like this letter.
I like this topic.
I like this question.
It is how do I grieve something that could still happen?
How do I grieve something that isn't quite dead?
How do I grieve something that I wanted within a certain time frame and in a certain way
and with a certain set of circumstances surrounding that and I clearly didn't get that.
But some measure of this, some breath of this could still possibly enter me and be a part
of my life.
There's definitely not a scientific term for this that I can think of in the moment, but
the phrase that's coming to me right now is suspended grief.
It's almost like your grief is hanging there in the space of your life.
No more than six feet away from you at any given moment, sort of always existing in your
orbit.
And I think this is true for grief for loved ones we have who've died.
It's like we carry the grief with us all the time, but this sort of suspended grief,
it's almost a potential grief and yet a grief that already exists for a loss that has
already happened.
What I mean is this.
We've experienced the loss of this dream in the way that you feel or think or believe
that it should have gone.
It should have happened by now.
It should have looked like this.
It should have unfolded this way.
You had expectations surrounding this and I and I don't say this to shame you.
We all have expectations surrounding everything and it makes sense that you are grieving the
fact that all of your expectations or most of your expectations, maybe 95, 98% of your
expectations surrounding this dream have not come to pass.
There is grief in that.
And yet there is this other part of this experience that has not yet been a loss.
There is something that remains.
There is some potential still surrounding this.
There is some life here, however small.
You are carrying something with a great amount of paradox.
I want to sort of tease apart your definitions of grief in the letter that you wrote.
It sounds a fair bit like you think grief is something that happens and then you're done.
When in reality grief is something we carry with us, always.
From what it sounds like and you say, I can't fully grieve because the dream is an entirely
dead.
Even if it was entirely dead, your grieving is never finished.
Grief is a process of coping with the loss and coping, yes, looks like things like sadness
and despair and hopelessness, powerlessness, mourning, releasing difficult emotions, but
it also looks like finding ways to remember and honoring and finding purpose and making
meaning and experiencing joy with grief in tow.
Again, grief encompasses it all.
Grief is a very large umbrella that we carry forward with us through the rest of our life.
So you are never done grieving.
And I think in some ways, whether this dream comes to pass or not, you will always be grieving
the way that you expected it to go, the way it should have unfolded.
I do get what you mean by this sense of this dream coming back from the dead over and over
again, this dream haunting you.
I think that dreams or ideas do this and I'm going to get a little bit woo-woo for a second,
but I think that dreams and ideas do this because they are a part of us.
They belong to us.
We formed them.
We made them.
We sew them together in our brains, in our hearts, and in our souls, and in our spirits.
And it's really hard to release them, especially if we have a lot of stories, narratives, beliefs
surrounding them that make us feel most like ourselves.
Our most fulfilled selves are most enriched selves, like we have achieved what we set out
to achieve in this life, not necessarily through money or success or acquisition, but
like we are where we were meant to be.
And I think that's one reason, perhaps why this dream will not leave you alone because
it still wants to come to some sort of fruition.
It's a part of the gratitude practices you've had and making your current home into a paradise
and doing everything in your power to create optimism and contentment where you are right
now.
There's a sort of restlessness inside of you that cannot settle until this dream is made
into reality.
I want to acknowledge that, that that's really real and that's something that you are
carrying and are allowed to continue to carry.
I think we don't talk enough about as a society the dreams that go with us to our graves.
We each die.
Most of us die.
With the dreams unfulfilled, with things unfinished with life undone.
When she was dying, my mom said to my aunt when my aunt came to visit her in the hospital,
and she found out that she was going to die from her cancer.
She looked at my aunt and said, "I'm just not done."
And that's something that I have been motivated to live by.
I make a lot of decisions based on if I died tomorrow, would I feel completed?
And still, I think by sheer nature of being humans and being alive on this planet, we are
always being visited by dreams and ideas that want to be made.
I hope that I don't die with things unfinished inside me.
And yet I know, with 99% certainty, based on the way my life's gone so far in the amount
of ideas I've generated about things I want to make or do or be or have or hold or tend
to or take care of or manifest into being with my own hands or with my own words, I probably
will die with things left inside me.
So I think what you're reckoning with right now is, should I say goodbye to this, which
it sounds like you don't want to do, and the dream doesn't want to do either, or should
I find some way to carry this forward, not necessarily to hold on to hope because that can be a difficult
practice, but to leave the door open to possibility.
And that's a different kind of exercise.
Oftentimes hope feels like a pursuit, something you are actively doing.
I am hoping for this.
I am wishing for this.
I am dreaming for this.
I am investing energy in this direction of my life.
Inside life after loss academy, I use a picture of a person chasing hope with a butterfly
net literally going after something that is fragile and fleeting and very, very uncertain
of whether or not you will ever catch it.
But the alternative that we also do inside of life after loss academy, so I wonder if you
might like to join us there, is to picture yourself or your heart or your soul or whatever
visual resonates with you as a big house with doors that you can open.
So of hope or this dream wants to enter it can because you have not closed yourself to
it.
But what you are not doing is expanding your energy out there in the world, chasing it,
pursuing it, willing it to cross your path, willing it into the net.
And at a time when it can feel like so many factors are out of your control, shifting
your focus from I am going after this or I am actively hoping for this, to I will leave
the door open to this.
I will continue my life.
I will keep practicing gratitude.
I will make the space I do have a paradise here on earth and my door is open always.
To the possibility of something else, that energy is more relaxed.
It takes less out of view.
It gives you a different posture with which to view this dream, less leaning forward in
your chair, more leaning back, less forcing, more allowing.
What you are reckoning with right now is a form of ambiguous loss.
It's a weird slippery ping ponging thing.
It's a bit all over the place.
If you're interested in learning more about ambiguous loss, that is a term that you can
google for sure.
And there are so many podcasts and books and resources for what to do with ambiguous loss
and how to hold it and how to tend to it and nurture it and release it and work with
it.
If that's something that you'd like to do.
I also wonder too, grieving dreamer.
If it would be helpful for you to focus on the why behind this dream.
What does this represent for you?
Sometimes looking at why we want something or why a dreamer idea won't leave us alone.
You can consider other ways that you might bring those things forward into your life.
For instance, if it's connecting with nature, you might do something like cultivate a garden
or go on regular hikes or join a community or a group of hobbyists around appreciating
nature.
You could fill your life with more things that are this flavor and perhaps by association
fill your life with more opportunities for things to come through that open door.
I don't know that I have much more for you and that's not necessarily a bad thing.
I don't think.
I think you are doing a wonderful job with what you have and where you are on this point
in the map of your life.
I think the practices that you are already cultivating are helpful.
And also I think that maybe what you needed to hear or what I hope you'll hear, how about
that?
I'll phrase it that way for you grieving dreamer.
What I hope that you will hear is that it's okay if this dream lingers.
It's okay if it feels like it is so integrated with your body that it's impossible to surgically
remove it.
It is necessary to you and who you are.
I hear the angst and the longing in your words.
I hear you speaking of this as an open wound but I wonder if you could, when you're ready,
you could reframe this dream as one of the doors in your house.
Maybe a screen door, maybe a porch door, maybe an attic window that always remains just
a little bit open.
Not chasing hope, not expending your energy going after it.
But as you exist where you currently are in the home in which you live, always metaphorically
keeping some crevice open, both so that the grief can come in and out and the dream can
come in and out.
But the possibility for things to evolve and change in the future because things are always
evolving and changing in the future to also come in and out to stop by for a visit.
The last thing I'll say is this.
I don't remember where I heard this advice but I'm 99% sure that I heard it from a black
content creator on threads.
And it was something akin to one of the greatest ways to get something that you deeply want
is to talk about it.
Incessantly, everywhere you go with everyone you meet, grieving dreamer does everyone in
your life know about this dream.
Sometimes the thing keeping us from making our dream a reality or having that dream step
through the door with no effort on our part is by talking about it over and over and over
again.
And that may be painful for you.
In talking about it you may be reminded of all the ways it hasn't come true and all the
ways you've failed and all the steps between you and this dream being yours that you have
yet to cross.
And also putting your dream on other people's radar.
Suddenly makes it something you don't carry alone.
It becomes an open door and unfinished sentence, a task to be completed, an opportunity to
be filled by the other people in your life.
And I find that a lot of times people, including perfect strangers, want your dreams to come true
as much as you do.
It is so very human to dream and it is also very human to connect the people we care about
with ways in which their dreams can come true.
So open the door, allow yourself to continue carrying this dream, maybe in softer ways, maybe
in ways that allow it to be the part of you that it sounds like it is and talk about
this dream.
Even if it doesn't bring it closer physically, literally in your life.
Talking about dreams in and of themselves as a practice can bring you much, much closer
to the people in your life.
Ask about their dreams, share yours and notice how all of you can get closer to these dreams
together.
I faith in you and I am rooting for you and this dream.
That's all for this episode of Dear Grave Guide.
Thank you so much for joining me today.
If you're feeling lost, stuck, heartbroken or overwhelmed in the midst of your own grief,
check out my free workshop Grow Through Grave.
Three ways to stop feeling stuck and start moving forward.
I'll give you three easy, actionable tools for navigating life after loss and show you
how you can create peace, stability and compassion right there in the middle of grief's confusion
and uncertainty.
You can find the workshop link in the show notes.
If this podcast helped you feel a little less alone in your grief, please subscribe and
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And be sure to share Dear Grave Guide with a friend because you never know what someone
you love is going through.
You can submit your anonymous letter for the show and find additional grief support at
shallbeforcithia.com.
Music for Dear Grave Guide is performed by Eddie Goldstein, editing by Ruth Spence of
Celebio.
Until next time, I see you.
I am so proud of you and the work that you're doing in the world.
And I love you because even through grief, we are growing.
Music for Dear Grave Guide is performed by Eddie Goldstein, editing by Eddie Goldstein.