Dear Grief Guide, I'm Mourning The Loss Of A Dream

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 Forsythia.

I'm a grief coach and author,

And I'm here to help you create a life you love from the life loss 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 home 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 timeframe and in a certain way and with a certain set of circumstances surrounding that?

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,

You'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 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 isn't 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 lives,

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 sewed them together in our brains and 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,

Our 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,

Inclusive 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 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 and 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 if hope or this dream wants to enter,

It can,

Because you have not closed yourself to it,

But what you are not doing is expending 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'm 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 you.

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?

Is it solitude or connection with nature or freedom or a sense of finally having come home?

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 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,

An 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 have faith in you,

And I am rooting for you and this dream.