Moving From Angst to Gratitude

I am feeling a lot of angst about leaving my dog. I am going to visit my son and his wife and my two grandchildren for 3 weeks over the holidays. I have arranged for Taj to stay at my friend Carolyn’s house for the duration.

During this year I had to leave him at Carolyn’s and with another friend, Sheila, during my 2 surgeries and recovery. All together that was a month and a half. Now I am going off again. I feel my heart being pulled.

This is my first year with Taj. I got him just before Christmas last year. He is a marvelous guy. He is gentle, friendly with other animals, wonderful and endlessly patient with children and adaptable. He seems to be able to go to others’ homes and stay without much stress.

Of all the dogs I have had in my life, Taj is the one who is not neurotic. He is the one who can make changes. He is the one who is not aloof with I return from an extended visit. He is immediately present to me and that makes me very happy.

I feel fortunate to have friends who want Taj to stay with them. I am glad I don’t have to leave him in a kennel. I feel like he is getting personal attention and love at my friends’. That is so important to me. He will get walked and played with and loved on. Taj and I are lucky that way.

So, since Taj will be cared for and happy, why am I anxious and feeling guilty leaving him? There are feelings of abandonment that come up when I think about leaving him. I don’t think he reflects this or that he even experiences this. He lives in the moment and when he is with Carolyn or Sheila he is happy.

I also feel as though I am shirking my responsibility as a pet-owner. I feel as though I made a commitment and am not living up to my end of the deal. This, too, is not accurate, as I know finding him appropriate care when I am unavailable is part of being a good pet-owner.

Are some of my feelings due to the fact that I will miss him? You bet. That seems obvious and normal. I enjoy his little spirit immensely and love waking up to his happy little self each day. Still, I need to be able to go away from him and be okay with his staying here.

At least I know the problem is mine and not Taj’s. I have the capacity to work though my feelings. It is not a far stretch for me to get to gratitude. I am sincerely grateful to my friends for loving Taj and appreciate their willingness to take him into their homes.

I think it is time to let go of the angst and start enjoying the time I am away more. He is going to be well cared for when I am gone and I can go with the assurance of that. I am going to let go of “my stuff” and simply leave with confidence and enjoy my family. Taj will be fine.

Getting Conscious Closure

We live in a society of instant gratification with hasty moving from job to job, home to home and relationship to relationship. This behavior encourages walking away from situations and people without looking back or processing anything. This disconnected behavior doesn’t naturally encourage the important step of conscious closure. For the sake of this blog, conscious closure is finishing something with full mental, emotional and spiritual awareness. For me, conscious closure buttons down the hatches completely, leaving no loose ends: no things unsaid, no feelings unobserved.

Conscious closure is an acquired skill. We get better at it the more we do it. At first it can be scary. This is true especially for those of us who have experienced a lot of loss and abandonment in our lives. We can learn the process if we are willing and patient.

The first step is to be willing to let go. Letting go is very difficult sometimes and our attachment, especially to a person, place or thing can be strong. There are times, though, when we have outgrown situations or people or we are being injured emotionally, physically or spiritually in some way that calls for action. It is time to let go and we must find a way to finish “it” cleanly.

Being willing involves feeling all the emotions that come up. You can expect there will be a lot of challenging emotions. Learning to allow feelings to wash over us is critical. The old way of us getting stuck in our feelings and then “thinking” them over and over does not work and needs to be updated. Having a strong support system to help keep us honest and not allow us to tell ourselves lies to minimize the situation so that we stay too long can be invaluable.

After we’ve told the truth to ourselves and accepted willingly to move on and deal with the feelings that have come up, it’s time to begin the process of letting go. Some people stay in this part of the process for a while and continue working with their feelings. I find it helpful to set a time limit to be in this phase so that inertia doesn’t keep us stuck in the feelings of fear of moving on. Give yourself 6 weeks or 6 months or whatever works for you--but have an ending point.

Moving on usually means addressing some part of the situation outside of ourselves. This can often mean communicating your needs and intentions to another person. This can be really scary but is necessary. Before communicating it is helpful to write out all you are feeling and exactly what you need to say. No matter how you choose to communicate, it is best to keep your intentions simple and to own your part in the situation. To be successful there can be no blaming. You are just stating what you need and intend to do. (Blaming invariably ignites arguing and makes healthy communicating impossible. Avoid it!)

The next step can feel really difficult—allowing the other person to have their responses and feelings without you feeling responsible. It is important to let them have their feelings. It is equally important to protect yourself and set boundaries around listening to them, especially if you are vulnerable to wanting them not to be uncomfortable or feel hurt. It can seem cruel to set limits on how much you participate in their process but it is important to let them use their own resources to work on it. Your work is dealing with your feelings. Their work is dealing with theirs. 

In an ideal world, this is where the alchemical process of conscious closure would begin to percolate. It would involve sharing the good parts of the situation, expressing any unfinished business and communicating feelings, regrets, needs, and anything else that would bring things to a healthy finish. If one person is stuck in their process and is blaming and wanting the other to take responsibility for their feelings, then the conscious closure needs to happen within and not with them.

The process of conscious closure is one that feels great when it is done by both sides and is completed out of mutual respect and support. The creativity of this process can bring you to a new level and the change can be most gratifying. This is the best possible outcome. I practice holding onto the best possible outcome in my mind’s eye by imagining and visualizing what will be said, felt and known. It gets easier to be truthful and communicate your needs to others with practice. It is important to allow yourself to practice reaching for conscious closure in the minutest of aspects of your life every day. Then, when the big things come up you will be well along your way of attaining conscious closure and finishing things well.