Permission To Be Where You Are: Learning To Embrace All Parts Of The Self With Compassion
Episode 31: Permission To Be Where You Are
This episode explores the depths of grief and how complex the experience can be. I share what I’m going through in a very real and raw way. Listen to this when you’re feeling like you need permission to be exactly where you are.
Episode Details
Summary
In this episode, I’m sharing from a place of not having everything neatly figured out. As I sat down to record, I realized I didn’t have a clear topic or message ready. Instead, what felt most honest was to speak from the blankness, the inwardness, and the depth of grief that has been present for me this week.
I reflect on the pressure I’ve felt to turn grief into a beautiful transformation story. There is a part of me that wants to make meaning from loss, to become a bright guiding light, and to wrap the experience in hope. But grief does not always work that way. Sometimes it does not need a silver lining. Sometimes it simply needs to be what it is.
I also share a vivid dream I had about my dad, where I was driving with him and kept passing his car because I wanted more time together. Waking from that dream brought both joy and sadness, which is one of the hardest parts of grief to explain. It can feel beautiful to visit the memories, and devastating to return to the reality that new memories will not be created in the same way.
This episode explores the non-linear nature of healing. Grief can spiral back to places you thought you had already moved through, whether that looks like crying in a restaurant, feeling overwhelmed by memories, or comparing your grief to someone else’s. None of it means you are doing it wrong.
This is an invitation to release the timelines, rules, and judgments around grief. However your grief is expressing itself, it is allowed. You do not have to rush yourself into meaning, clarity, or acceptance before you are ready. You can simply be here, exactly as you are.
This episode is for you if…
You’re feeling lost in your grief and aren’t sure what to make of it
You’re going through a significant transformation and trying to make sense of it all
You’re exploring parts of yourself and learning to be more self-compassionate
You feel pressure to be at a certain milestone and looking for permission to just be
You’re starting over and feeling self-conscious about where you’re at
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Welcome to The Shoreline, where we explore the tender in-between seasons of the human experience. My name is Kim, and I'm here to support you as you navigate your next becoming. Here, we don't fix, we listen, we don't rush, we allow. Hello, and welcome. If you're new here, I'm so happy that you've made your way to The Shoreline. And if you're returning, welcome back. So I'll be really honest with you. As I sat down to record today, I truly had no idea what I wanted to talk about. I do have kind of a ritual that I go through when I'm working on the podcast. I will sit down and I listen to the previous episode and kind of take notes and go back to that time and space that I was in. And usually when I'm listening to that and kind of creating the email and the blog post, I'll have an idea of what I want to speak about. And usually throughout the week, I'll kind of jot down different notes or things that come up. And this week, I feel like my mind is just kind of blank, like nothing. I've been so just in what I've been going through that. I really haven't been thinking about anything else. And none of that really has come up. And I'm wondering if part of that is that we're now in a Mercury retrograde, and that is typically a time where we dive a little bit more inward. And I noticed that when Mercury is in retrograde, I am my most introverted self. I need a lot of space, and it's a time of deep reflection and processing, and not so much a time of sharing. So I'm wondering if that's part of it. And it's super interesting just to notice myself in the space that I'm in, and just not really feeling, I don't want to say not excited, because I'm always excited to sit down and work on the podcast. It's truly one of the most joyful parts of my week. But I just don't feel like I have a lot to share, and I find that to be really interesting. We're kind of beginning in a weird space, but that's truly just where I'm at over this last week. I've really just been in the depths of grief, and the days have been pretty challenging. I've just noticed a lot of judgment coming up of feeling like I should be in a certain place or kind of going back to a linear timeline of, it's been over a year since my dad passed. And if I'm being really, truly honest with you, there's been part of me that wants to create meaning from this pretty devastating experience. And I think that I've been putting pressure on myself to have this big flashy transformation and to tie everything up in a beautiful bow and be like, look, I've overcome this horrible, devastating experience and I'm better for it. And look at all of the things that I'm doing and you can do it too. And that's really not how life works. And I'm grateful for that part that is, it's coming from a loving place. That part of me really just wants to be okay and wants to share hope and beautiful experiences with you and to be a guiding light. I think that that part of me really wants to be a bright light for you. And so I just want to honor that. And I'm not judging that part of me because it is coming from a loving place. And that pressure and that self-judgment isn't necessarily helpful, especially when I'm in the deep emotions of grief and really feeling the loss. And grief is really complex. I remember a few days ago, I had a very vivid dream. My dreams are often very vivid and I'm a lucid dreamer, and it almost feels like my dream world is just as real as my actual world. But in this dream, I was sitting in the car with my dad, and we were driving around, and I was supposed to be driving him to his car, because wherever we had ended up in my dream, we had gone there separately. And we were sitting in the car, I was driving, and I was just talking to him about everything that I've done and how everything has been after his passing. And it was very strange in the moment to be talking to my dad in my dream about life without him after he passed. And I remember I would like in the dream, I would drive past his car and instead of stopping and letting him out, I would just keep driving and I was just driving around and around because I wanted to spend as much time with him as possible. And it was really beautiful. When I woke up, I felt both so happy that I got to spend that time with him and then so sad that he's not with me now. And I think that really highlights the complexity of grief in a beautiful way of like, it is so joyful, it is so wonderful to spend time in the memories of my dad, to have a dream about him, to think about all the experiences we've had together. And it is equally sad and devastating to come back to reality and where I'm at now and to realize that he is not here and we will not be creating new memories together. And I find that juxtaposition of emotions really, really hard to put into words and to share with, anyone who hasn't experienced loss. And it is a very unique part of the grief journey. And so I'm sharing this because this is what is real and present for me. And if you're on a grief journey or you've experienced loss, I just want you to know that your experience is valid and you're not alone. And you don't have to try to make sense of any of it. Like, I don't think that while grief is a very powerful portal of transformation, it is also not something that we have to make sense of and to tie up in this perfect experience where you move on and you create all the good, and you don't have to find the silver lining. It can just be what it is. And what it is is devastating and terrible, but beautiful, and there's so much love, and it just is what it is. It's one of the most complex things I think we will ever experience as humans. And yeah, I'm still trying to just make sense of it all. And I hope you're not sick of me talking about grief and my grief journey, because I think that it'll be a theme in the rest of my life. You really just can't go back. And it's given me a new perspective. I'm a different person because of it, and it's something that I carry with me. It's now just part of who I am. And I think that I'm still coming to terms with that. And over this last week, I've found myself just, I think, feeling just overwhelmed by it all. And I think there have been times where I've wanted to go back to a simpler time, or I've been thinking about when you get to be a kid and when life feels simpler, and just wanting to feel like life is a little bit less complicated than it is. And I think that's a wonderful desire. And I wouldn't trade my experience for anything. I love that life is full of complexity. But it's also difficult. And I think that part of this journey is just allowing yourself the time and space to just be. And I think that I put a lot of pressure on myself to be doing a lot. And sometimes I use productivity to try and push myself to move forward when maybe I'm not quite ready to move forward. So maybe that's the lesson for me is to really just trust that I am where I am, and there's no rush to get to where I need to go to get to what is next. I can just be in the here and now, and take a deep breath, and take the time I need, and not rush through the process. I think that's also part of the grief journey is like, it's different for everyone. We all experience it differently. I think about my mom and my sister and myself a lot, and how sometimes I fall into the trap of comparison, and thinking like, why am I not more like them? Why are my feelings not more like theirs? And I just have to come back to the fact that we are all grieving differently. My dad meant something different to all of us. And so while we're grieving the same person, we're all on our own journeys. And I won't speak to their journeys because those journeys are for them. I can only speak to my own. But I will say that sometimes when I'm deep in my grief, I will just wish that it manifested differently. Right after my dad passed, I went through this phase of anytime I would go out to dinner at a restaurant, pretty much about mid-meal, I would just start crying. I just couldn't help it and I would lose it. And there was a little bit of embarrassment that came from that, like, I didn't want to be the person crying in the restaurant. I wanted to be the one who had it all together. And I was, I don't want to say irritated, but I just wished that, like, that would happen to my mom and my sister as well. But it was just happening to me. And so for the months right after my dad passed, anytime I would go out to a restaurant, I would just cry mid-meal and that's just what it was. And it got easier over time. Then, for whatever reason, over this last week, this crying in restaurants came up again. And my immediate feeling was that, like, I felt ashamed and I was judging myself because I felt like I was past it. It was an aspect of me that I already didn't love to begin with. And so I was just like, oh, why? Why is this back? Why am I here, sitting in a restaurant, crying again? But grief comes from a place of love, and it just is what it is. And I think that I just really have to give myself permission to be the person crying in a restaurant. And it's okay. And I can't help how I feel. I don't know why that seems to be a trigger for me, but it just is, and that's okay. And it's okay that it isn't like that for other people. I'm sure I'm not the only one crying in a restaurant over losing someone they cared about, but I am the only one in my family who seems to be doing that. And that's okay. I get to express myself in my own unique way, and it doesn't mean that I loved my dad more or less than my family, and we just all have our own unique ways of experiencing the grief, and that's beautiful. It's a deeply personal experience, and it's not meant to look the same as anyone else. And so I just want to honor that as well. And to say that whatever grief journey you're on, whether it's losing someone you care about, you're grieving a relationship, a job, an old identity, whatever it is, it's okay to express yourself the way that you feel inclined to. Like there's no right or wrong way to do this. Like grief is already so difficult and so complicated. We don't need to be making rules about it, or placing judgment, or imposing timelines. It just is what it is. And that's where I'm at. I feel like I don't want to use the word regression, but I'm revisiting some different themes that have come up, and healing really is that spiral. And so I'm spiraling back to some of the same stuff that I felt right after my dad passed. And that's okay. That's where I'm at right now. And I think that it's part of the process of growing and evolving. And I just want to be really honest with you about where I'm at. And I'll be curious to see what else comes forward during this Mercury retrograde. And it's been super interesting so far. I think it's also heightened because we're in cancer season right now. I am a cancer rising, which means that my entire birth chart is ruled by the moon. So I'm already pretty sensitive to the moon cycles. I'm pretty sensitive to cancer is usually a very tender season for me. And then you sprinkle on top of that, a Mercury retrograde. And it's kind of like a beautifully chaotic mess. There's a lot going on in my inner world that I haven't been able to really make sense of yet. And I'm just really curious to see what unfolds and what I learn about myself during this time. And I really am going to give myself permission to maybe take a step back and really take that time I need and that space I need to turn inward and look at my inner life a little bit. So that's the update that I have for you today. If you want to dive deeper into your own inner landscape, or you're navigating a big transition, or you're on a grief journey, or you aren't sure what's next, I offer guidance and support through The Shoreline private coaching sessions. We meet one-on-one every week for six months with support available in between sessions. If you are curious about that, you can find more information on my website. The link is in the show notes. I hope that you take good care while the waves carry you closer and know that your next version is already waiting on the shore.
If you’re feeling stuck in the foggy middle and exhausted from having to always “figure it out” alone, I want to invite you to…
Download this FREE audio experience to invite more calm and peace into your life and reconnect with your inner wisdom
Explore The Shoreline Private Sessions to find aligned support as you navigate a significant life transition
Learn how to shift the energy of your day using a morning ritual
Read this essay about losing my dad and being catapulted into the unknown
Kim Kogane is a writer and intuitive guide helping you navigate the tender in-between seasons. She lives in Seattle, Washington with her dog, Cauchy, and three cats. Learn more about Kim.
