The Tenderness of Impermanence: Embracing What We Have Right Now Without Being Afraid Of What Comes After
Episode 29: The Tenderness Of Impermanence
This episode explores the idea of grieving before loss and how grief impacts your view of the world around you. I share my experience of how losing my dad has changed my relationship with my aging dog, Cauchy, and how ultimately my grief comes from a place of love. This episode will help you shift your perspective of grief, fear, and the need for certainty.
Episode Details
Summary
In this episode, I’m reflecting on impermanence and the way everything in life is always changing. After sharing last week that I had been feeling frustrated and in a mood, I’ve been sitting with what has been underneath that feeling and noticing how much anticipatory grief has been present for me.
I talk about my dog Cauchy entering her senior years and how that has brought up a deeper awareness of how precious our time together is. When we love someone deeply, whether it’s a person, an animal, a relationship, or even a season of life, we also know that it will eventually change. That awareness can bring fear and sadness, but it can also bring us closer to what matters most.
This episode explores how grief can help clarify our priorities. It can make the noise fall away and remind us not to spend our time on things that only feel like maybes. When we remember that our moments are limited, we are invited to be more present, more honest, and more devoted to the people and experiences we truly care about.
I also share an image my inner voice once gave me of riding a roller coaster. In the moment before the drop, we can grip tightly and try to control what happens, or we can lift our hands, trust the ride, and allow ourselves to feel both the fear and the joy of being alive.
This is an invitation to honor what is here while it is here. To let love, grief, fear, and gratitude exist together. To release the need for permanence and find steadiness within yourself as life continues to shift and unfold.
This episode is for you if…
You’re on a grief journey and worrying about what or who you might lose next
You’re in a season of transition and crave more balance and clarity
You’re worried about what might come next for you and are looking for more clarity and grounding
You’re grieving before experiencing the actual loss and want to explore that feeling further
You’re an over-achieving perfectionist who’s ready to let go and figure out what’s next
Related Episodes
-
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 to today's episode. If you're new here, I'm so glad that you've made your way to The Shoreline, and if you're returning, welcome back. I'm so happy that you're here. Last week, I mentioned that there was a lot of frustration present for me, and I just was in a mood. There has been some shifts. I've been really thinking about what's been present for me, and where I'm at, and what theme is being brought forward for me, and what feels most present right now is impermanence, to be honest with you. I think that I'm feeling really in tune with how everything is always changing and how I'm personally in a big transition, and it also feels like the world around me is trying to figure it out too. And I've noticed that grief has been really with me as it is now, but this feeling of anticipatory grief. And I first started noticing it with my dog Cauchy, and she's eight and a half now, so we've moved into senior dog territory. And a couple of years ago, I had to say goodbye to one of my cats, she was the first pet that I got as an adult. And pet loss is really interesting because when you bring an animal into your life, you already know that at some point you'll have to say goodbye. The expectation is that you will outlive your furry companion, and it's part of what you sign up for. And so I think with Cauchy shifting into a different phase in her life, I've just been a lot more present with how precious and how limited our time together really is. I think I've always wanted to just be with her as much as possible and really soak it all in and take it all in. And now this anticipatory grief has really been coming forward for me of, like, how many more walks do we have? How much longer is it going to be like this? When will she not be able to do this? Like, how many more times can we go to the beach? Like, how much longer is she going to live? And I think it's a very natural part of grief. When you lose someone you care about, you start to see everyone around you and the limited time that you have. And I think it's just been intensified lately and it's become just like part of my life. I'm starting to see just how I think the more present I am, the more I realize like there's no time to waste. Like each and every moment is unique and special. And I think that looking at it through the lens of this anticipatory grief, it's causing me a little bit of worry and fear and some anxiety. But I think it's also allowing me to really focus on what is most important to me. And it's helping me let go of what I actually don't care about. And I'm noticing in myself, I'm learning to say no to things that I actually don't want to do. Because I want to spend as much time with Cauchy as possible. I don't want to waste my time doing something that is a maybe, when I could be with her and we could be creating memories and experiencing unique moments. And so, yeah, the gift of grief in general is like, it really helps all of the kind of junk just fall away. And I feel like I'm seeing things really clearly and just wanting to make the most of every moment. And I think that the kind of learning and the struggle about this is working through that fear and understanding that our time is limited here, and we're always moving forward, and this human experience is really unique. And I feel like I've really had to just learn to accept that there is impermanence. Like nothing is permanent. And to just really be adaptable and to, as my inner voice has said to me in what I shared last week, roll with the punches. Like every moment is different. And when you're present, you know that every moment is unique. And things might not happen the same way in the future. And you create stability within yourself. You don't need permanence to feel grounded and stable. And I think that's really been the learning for me. Like, yes, I know that someday I will say goodbye to Cauchy and it'll be really hard. And I don't know when that is. It could be tomorrow, a week from now, 10 years from now. I have no idea. And that's actually part of what makes life really beautiful is that we don't know. All I can do is be in the present moment and really savor it and live my life. And I think that I like to say that, you know, I've mastered it and everything's great. And I'm like totally OK with nothing being permanent and time always moving forward. And I think that it's just not how it works. And I think it's learning to find that balance of like, how can I be present and let go of the fear and worry that each moment is changing and that someday things might be different. And so that's what's been really coming forward for me is like, how can I how can I really detach and let go from this desire to to have control over everything and to craft like the perfect schedule, the perfect sequence of events to maximize everything. And it really is kind of just productivity culture, finding a new way to be expressed. And I think what I really hope for myself is that I can learn to kind of let go and trust more and let my intuition and my inner wisdom guide me and just trust that I'm supported and I'm where I'm supposed to be and really just allow myself to enjoy the ride. I think when I was first kind of getting into inner voice work, I would ask my inner voice, my intuition about fear a lot, and it would show me the same image and it would show me a roller coaster and I would always be in the front car of the roller coaster. And you think about that moment where you're kind of slowly making your way to the top of that first peak and that fear and that excitement and you're anticipating what's going to happen. And when you get to the top and the roller coaster is shifting and it's about to go down, you have a choice. You can hold on and try to be in control or you can recognize that you have no control at all. And you chose this and to kind of lift your arms up into the air and just enjoy the ride. And my inner voice is always encouraging that sensation of just like letting go and letting it be a joyful, exciting experience and to acknowledge that like you chose this. You made the choice and you don't have to be afraid, right? Like you trust in the roller coaster to bring you back to where you started. And I think about that a lot, and how fear can be such a driver and it can be misunderstood. And I think, you know, there's real fears, real worries in life. And I wonder how I might be able to to approach my real life fears with a little bit more of that roller coaster energy, right? And just, like, really allow it in, instead of trying to find ways to control what might happen. Like, how might things shift if I just let go of control and really allowed the fear in and allowed myself to just go on the ride, right? And I think about that in terms of grief, in terms of, you know, Cauchy and also other people in my life. I think, like, after losing a parent, you realize that your time is limited with the parent that you do have, and I want to really spend time with my mom and take it in and with everyone in my life. Grief doesn't just happen when someone dies, right? It could be the ending of a partnership, a romantic relationship. You could move to a different place and let go of friends that you've had, and your friendship shifts into something different. I've had that happen a lot where I have friends, and then they move away, and our friendship shifts from being whatever it was in person to now being a long-distance friendship. And sometimes, you know, that distance means like letting go of that person completely. And so grief can show up in lots of different ways. And I think it's really important just to honor where you're at right now and to just enjoy those moments and also know that it could change. And that's okay, too. I think that anticipating the change and that fear that comes with it, not holding that too tightly, like really welcoming it in and saying, wow, like I have this anticipatory grief. I'm anticipating this change because I really care about who is in front of me, right? Like it's coming from a place of love and a fear of change. And I wonder how we can just accept, like, I don't know how long this is going to last, how long this person or animal is going to be in my life, or even it doesn't have to be a living being, it could be a job, a hobby, whatever it is that is really important to you, just honoring that however long it's here, I want to enjoy it and I accept that something can change, and then I'll shift and allow that to be. And I just wonder for myself, like how that would kind of shift how I experience the worry and the grief and the fear. If I really kind of go down to like the root of where it's coming from and think of it as like, oh, this means that I really care about this and I love this a lot, versus like, oh, I'm just like afraid of change, right? Because it's both and, and just really taking a moment to dive a little bit deeper. And so that's what I've been working through. I think that kind of sharing this with you has brought a little bit of an aha moment to me. And I'm curious to see how things unfold and what shifts happen. Now that I have this kind of deeper understanding of, of what's going on and where this grief is coming from. Somewhat related, I feel like in, in my grief journey of losing my dad, lately I've, I've been really just missing all of the things that I'll never get to do with him. I think that's, that's what's been coming up for me. And it's been a little bit unexpected and interesting to kind of think about, you know, all those things that, that may never come to be, that will never come to be because we're not creating new memories. All I have are kind of the ones that I have. And, you know, I've spoke about still having a relationship, a connection with him. I connect to him through signs that I receive through nature, through aligned numbers, through football and the Seahawks. And, you know, that's beautiful too. And I think that it is, it's very, you know, it's part of the human experience to want to create those tangible physical realm memories. And I just share it to, to share it and to say, I don't know what you're going through, but I just want to normalize that, you know, all of it is welcome. And I'm on this grief journey and I'm going through all these phases for the first time. And I just want to really share my experience in hopes that you can just take what you need from it. And yeah, it'll be interesting to see how my grief continues to integrate deeper into who I am now and how it shows up for me and how it all unfolds. So that's what I have for you today. I want you to know if you're feeling stuck in the foggy middle, if you're feeling exhausted from having to always figure it out alone, or maybe you're looking for that space and that accountability to really check in with yourself and have that kind of weekly cadence. If any of that is of interest to you, I want to invite you to explore the Shoreline private coaching sessions. You can find out more information or schedule time to chat with me on my website. The information is in the show notes. And that's where I'll leave you today, friends. 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 significance life transition
Learn how your mornings can shift the entire energy of your day
Connect to your inner wisdom using journal prompts and guidance from this self-paced course
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.
