Grieving your losses (even if you want 'em)

In the hallway at the school where I teach, there is a big, plastic bin that we call the lost and found. The teachers make fun of the contents because you can, quite literally, find almost everything in there. Coats and books, backpacks, hats, even socks and shoes. These things remain in the lost and found bin for months until finally someone takes them to the Goodwill. The other day a student came to my room after school, desperately looking for his jacket. He actually abhors this jacket (and has told me so on several occasions when I remind him that he's left it behind). I finally took the thing down to the lost and found bin and the following week someone donated the contents to charity. His jacket was gone. Even though he disliked it intensely, it was his jacket and he was saddened to see it go. 

"You hated it," I reminded him. "You complained about it all the time. You even told me you were TRYING to lose it because you knew your mom would buy you a new one."

"I know, " he said, so forlorn, "But now I miss it."

I share this story with you because I see so much of who I am in my students. They have been my greatest teacher for the past six years. It is often uncanny how well they reflect me and my state of mind.  

At our staff meeting on Wednesday, I announced to my colleagues that I was leaving to start my life coaching business. I'm posting my position on several webboards (as I'm well connected in the education field) and when I called off sick yesterday and checked in with my student teacher about the kids, she said everything went smoothly.  "I'm actually getting really excited about next year," she told me. In that moment, it occurred to me that everything would be okay without me there. 

I thought I was totally fine with leaving teaching-happy, relieved even-but it occurred to me after doing some self-coaching last night that grieving this loss, no matter how wanted, was really OK.  I feel just like my student when he realized his jacket was really gone; I feel this way exactly about my job. I don't like it, I don't want it and I have plans for a new one, but I feel sad that I won't have it anymore. This sadness does not mean I am making the wrong decision. Not at all.  But it seems to me that a necessary part of change is accepting the sadness you feel when you lose something. Even when you WANT to lose it. 

What I'd like to share with you today is what I often do during a loss. A bad habit, if you will, that often stops me from feeling my own sadness, at least temporarily. Maybe you do it too. I call it "getting pissed." Before I leave a friendship, a romantic relationship, a job, or whatever, I get pissed. I find a reason to be really, really angry so that my madness (double meaning intended) makes it easier to leave. "If I'm angry," I think, "Then it won't be so painful."

Often the opposite is true.  This anger leaves a lot of hurt feelings and bad energy and guilt. It does NOTHING for me but temporarily suspend my sadness which ends up surfacing anyway, often with more intensity because of my attempt at suppressing it. I noticed myself doing this with teaching as I was venting to one of my fellow coaches. 

"These parents blame me for everything!" I said. "They refuse to take responsibility for their child's actions! They accuse me of being a bad teacher anytime their kid gets in trouble! I'm so sick and tired of this! I can't wait to leave this job!"

This coach suggested I do "The Work" on these thoughts and I did. Not only did I completely realize my 100% responsibility for this situation, but I also cleared away the one thing I was using to "get pissed." The one thing I was trying to use to suppress my sadness.

What was left was a delicious space to grieve the loss of the old me-the teacher, and cleared some room for the new me-the life coach. Even though I had to hold back tears as I told my seventh graders about my new career choice, it was almost a sweet pain. It seemed both necessary and natural. I realized, in the moment that I stopped "getting pissed" and started accepting my grief, how much I loved each and every one of these beautiful, little teachers. My heart welled up with so much love that I put my lesson on commas to the side and taught them one of the most valuable tools I know-Byron Katie's Four Questions.

And now I will teach you. In the next post, I've included a link to The Work, and the four questions. I've also included an example on how I used this work on my own beliefs that were holding me back.  Welcome to freedom.