Recently I said goodbye to a place and people who had made a big impact on me, in the relatively short amount of time I had spent with them. It is actually not the end of our relationship – or at least I hope it isn’t – so perhaps I need not regard it as a loss. But the act of saying goodbye, and the realisation that this marked the end of something, prompted me to reflect on what that something was, what it signified for me, what it might have meant to them, and what space it occupies in my identity and personal history. Saying goodbye is something we do everyday, often casually with the full intention of maintaining whatever contact or relationship we share. Very much an “Au revoir”. Or it may be a formal offering with no loss attached. In amongst these, most of us have a number of goodbyes that stand out in our personal landscape, usually related to bereavements, relationship breakdowns, life changes. These are paid homage to and fully felt, sometimes with professional support. But what of the goodbyes that go unsaid? The frequent, smaller shifts in our life patterns and accompanying endings. What could we profit from pausing a moment to acknowledge these?
In the therapy room….
Goodbyes are also an integral and vital part of therapy. The most obvious one is the ending of therapy itself. It is a goodbye to a process but also to a person. We sit with them for 50 minutes each week, we trust our deepest fears and wounds to them and we invest our hope in them (and I speak as one who currently sits in both seats). The therapy relationship is an intimate and potentially transformative one and in normal circumstances the ending of it is planned for, openly discussed and acknowledged.
But over the course of therapy we often encounter losses that haven’t been grieved, goodbyes that haven’t been said. These can be related to completing phases of life, or natural transitions, such as leaving university moving house or changing our social tribe. These things are in many respects desirable, necessary or at least in the natural order of life. Several familiar (though not necessarily comforting) phrases come to mind “It was good while it lasted”, “All good things come to an end”, all of which pay lip service to comfort while discounting what is painful about the point we find ourselves at. Holding onto the pain of loss, or denial of that pain obscures what is valuable about the thing that is missed.
…and beyond
In my brief (and unproductive) flirtation with the Konmari (Japanese for decluttering) craze several months ago, I was struck by Marie Kondo’s suggestion that when facing resistance to throwing away clothes that we have worn and loved but no longer have a use for, we should take a moment to thank them for what they have given us and then say goodbye to them. In this small gesture in an apparently trivial act I could start to find the ingredients of respectful goodbyes that can be applied to many other situations.
What I have reflected on above are the elements of acknowledgement, grieving and gratitude bound up in a goodbye, whether in the therapy room or the world outside. As I’ve pondered what it means to say goodbye, I find I can capture it in the following statements which, even if not spoken aloud, will help us to connect with, and find meaning in, the natural ebbs and flows of life.
“I will miss you”
These words that are so often felt – deeply – without being spoken. They refer to an intimacy which it is sometimes difficult to verbalise but is powerful when we do. Even if we will see the person we are talking about in the future, what we are speaking of is the loss of what that person is for us in the current context and time. We miss them as a mentor, colleague, confidant, coffee buddy. We are also affirming the uniqueness of ourselves as individuals and the impact we have on each other. We exist in relationships and are unavoidably shaped by them.
Whilst at face value it’s a rather negative, bleak statement – your absence takes something away from me – the flip side of missing someone is the gift of what they have given us. Drawing parallels with the grieving process, if “grief is the price we pay for love” then the felt loss is the risk we take in seeking out relationships and attachments that can be fulfilling and rewarding.
“I will treasure this”
Gratitude, the flip side of the loss we suffer when we say goodbye. This shifts the focus from what is or will soon be absent to what endures within us. In the same way that one view of the grieving process is about creating “continuing bonds” with the loved one we have lost, this statement is about finding a mental and emotional placeholder for the person, the thing, or the experience that we are saying goodbye to.
“I am changed by this”
A big part of finding meaning in an experience is understanding the impact it has had on us. Where does it fit in the landscape of our life? How are we different? What will we do differently? The novelist and philosopher Milan Kundera speaks of the addition of experiences (and here I include experiences of other people) as the process by which we build our sense of self. What we say goodbye to becomes a part of what and who we are. Just as it does for the others in our lives. Richard Erskine, a Transactional Analysis psychotherapist and author, wrote of our need to have an impact on the other as a key “relational need”. And to have that impact we must be connected to them and connection is what we humans seek and thrive on. It is how we leave what Irvin Yalom calls our ripples behind, those lasting impressions within others that can make the end of our existence less painful to contemplate.
“I wish it could have been different”
Regret is a haunting word. It is usually seen as an undesirable thing, a pointless mental activity that produces pain without purpose. But appropriate regret, in measured doses, that can be tolerated and made sense of, can be a valuable source of learning. From the question “What do I wish had been different?” comes “What will I do differently next time?” and “How will that enrich my life and my relationships?” The key here is self-compassion – if we can reflect on our experiences in a non-judgemental manner we are more likely to learn constructively and less painfully from them.
We require self-compassion also in the act of acknowledging our unmet needs and our dashed hopes. The developmental skill of self-soothing, is a vital part of our survival kit.
Therapy too does not always go as we hoped. We may not find the supportive relationship that we need, we may not be able to communicate what troubles us or find meaning in the process. An important, though often uncomfortable, part of ending therapy is the broaching and acknowledgement of what didn’t work, what hopes were not realised and what we are left holding as we say goodbye. And that is as much true for the therapist as for the client.
Drawing this to a close
So what is in a goodbye and why would we benefit from saying it more often? Gratitude is a vital part of it and this in itself has positive benefits for our mental health. Too often we skip to the sad bit, focus on what has been lost rather than take time to reflect on what it is that makes the losing of it so hard. And self-reflection; acknowledging the impact on us, how we have been shaped and what we carry with us into the next chapter of our lives. “We are meaning-making creatures” (Irvin Yalom) and to spend time understanding what each passing experience contributes to the unique individual that we are is a worthwhile exercise.
Alison Brake 