How to Embrace an Ending as a New Beginning
It is hard to begin something new as another thing is ending. Endings can be painful and difficult to navigate. Sometimes they are necessary to move you to the next phase of life, like quitting drugs or alcohol and entering recovery. Conflicted feelings may emerge about whether it feels good or bad, or why memories keep popping up that remind you what you left was not so bad but what you are entering feels harder in some ways. Learn more about how to embrace an ending as a new beginning.
Glimpses
Seeing beginnings and endings can be a vital step in developing an understanding that nothing exists apart from cause-and-effect relationships. To notice beginnings and endings is also a great support for difficult times. Nothing lasts forever. People typically do better when they are willing to embrace endings rather than fight them. “This too shall pass” is one way people navigate endings. Pleasant things shift as well as difficult ones. Life is full of ups and downs, a journey of discovery. When people embrace these shifts, they typically find life’s ups and downs are easier to manage.
Suffering for Gain
Life is full of unpleasant things which cause pain. When we are parted from the pleasant, we feel pain. Until that pain is eased, with time and support, we will experience some type of suffering. A new world is emerging when suffering is experienced. Time is needed to get used to the new world that has been created. When someone experiences loss or pain, there does not feel like much is to be gained from it in the moment. The gains, or perspective of the gains, usually comes after the pain is over and the person is looking back over the experience with a different lens.
Feeling Emotions
The best way to experience endings as a new beginning is to let all the emotions be felt. Whether they are sad and lonely, despairing or challenged, these difficult emotions are not problems to be solved. They are distinct experiences to be felt deeply and processed as part of the human experience. When people struggle with pain and loss, this preoccupies the mind and leaves less room for hope. When pain is recognized as a legitimate result of loss, it is easier to have respect for the presence of it and practice self kindness. Life is not free of suffering for any person. It may seem some experience more than others. However, when we stop to experience goodness, even for a moment, we can look back and see not all is truly lost from pain. There is wisdom and truth that can give us light for the journey ahead and help us find our way home to ourselves.
The Palmetto Center is based on a Therapeutic Community model. We help people learn how to live free of addiction. Our community support provides structure while trained counselors offer life skills training and therapeutic techniques to help you move past addiction. Our program provides special focus for professionals including chiropractors, nurses, doctors, lawyers, and more who need help with addiction recovery. Call us to find out more: 866-848-3001.
