When we are in between two life chapters

Here I share with you some reflections on how we navigate the muddy waters of change in our lives, from a place of stilness and acceptance. I also share my summer reading recommendations, and details of upcoming retreats with me and Uma Dinsmore-Tuli.

I have arrived at this summer in the UK in a state of limbo. Not quite having let go of one huge part of my life; my late father’s house remaining at this point unsold, leaving me unable to completely close that chapter of my life.

I was hoping to start the summer with renewed vim and vigour, but it has not quite worked out that way. What I realise is that I am still in the transition phase of no longer having parents or many close family members in my life – of being an orphan, as a few people have pointed out in a soft and sympathetic way. And that whilst I undergo this transition, with its continuous bursts of grief and of gratitude for all that I had and all that I have lost, it is hard to launch into the next stage of my life.

It reminds me of the period when I had returned from working in Palestine for a year, back in 2012. This was also a time of grief and loss, as I realised I could no longer stick with the life I had made for myself as a human rights defender; that something had to change if I was to avoid sinking into exhaustion, depression and despair. And all I could do at that point was, also, slow down and let my eyes fill with tears, my body fill with sadness, before I could see clearly again.

A question I am asking myself now in my morning meditation is: Can I be patient and wait for my muddy waters to run clear?

Cue image of pigs bathing in the mud - from a walk I recently went on with a friend! It made me reflect on what it means to remain ‘stuck in the mud’ - how hard this is for us as humans who are so used to pushing forward and trying to control things.

This question - can I be paitent and wait for my muddy waters to run clear - is not suggesting I must sit and do nothing for as long as it takes, but it is inviting me to not rush into my next big project or work idea until I have allowed time for this transition between two worlds; the one where I felt loved and held by family and the new one where I must find new forms of family that may not be blood related, where I am left to parent myself. It is also a transition between old belief systems and ways of being in relationship, and new way of showing up more whole and more empowered, having integrated the learning from all that has gone before.

The space between these two worlds may feel like muddy waters indeed. I know many aid workers who go through this transition too, leaving their old ways of working and showing up in life behind – sometimes because they had no choice, they had become so ill. And the future can look very uncertain, frightening perhaps, in those moments – as we let go of who we thought we were and open up to who we really want to be.

Letting Go of the Carer Role

For those of us who play a carer role – either within our families, or as part of our work (or both, as I and many others have) – this transition can feel particularly hard.

Who are we if we are no longer the person taking care of everyone else?

This is also a question I am sitting with in this time. I know that empathy, care and concern for others – particularly those who are marginalised, or who are suffering from an injustice – remain big elements of who I am. But how I use these qualities in my relationships and in my work life is changing, and I am taking the time and space now to discover what that means in practice; what I am letting go of and what I am cultivating and calling in.

If you are in some form of transition, letting go of an identity or role you had played, are you also able to pause and wait for your muddy waters to clear? What practices and routines may help you do this? ?

Reading Recommendations and Retreat Offerings

Alongside meditation, I am also taking this opportunity to read (or finish) some of the books that have been piling up beside my bed and on my bookshelves. They include:

If Women Rose Rooted: A Life Changing Journey to Authenticity and Belonging by Sharon Blackie; a book that is particularly exquisite in audio format, narrated by the author, and which is rich with stories and mythologies of women as wisdom keepers in the lands of my own distant Irish ancestry.?

Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay; I love this style of essay writing, and the mixture of humour, honesty and commentary on how feminism shows up for her and where it is falling short.

Living Resistance: An Indigenous Vision for Seeking Wholeness Every Day by Kaitlin B. Curtice. This book is helping me (re)learn what it means to be in community, and in relationship with our own bodies and the land we are on, in ways that strengthen our activism, help us heal and overcome division and separation.

I am also enjoying a collection of short stories by Margaret Atwood – Old Babes in the Woods – and I have sadly given up on Middlemarch by George Eliot. Maybe I need to try a different classical novel that isn’t 800 pages long!

And as well as being in my own self-administered retreat space of sorts over this summer, I will soon be offering these to others! Do come and join me and Uma Dinsmore-Tuli for our Regenerative Activism retreat on 28 and 29 September in Stroud, and for our free online taster session on 28 August. If you are an activist, aid worker, charity worker or change maker these spaces are for you to rest, release grief and rage, and reconnect with love and hope. Do join us!

Love Gemma x