Three Ways to Open the Heart When It Is Most Vulnerable

Dear Reader,

I hope you are well. I have heard the weather is back to its ‘normal’ sunshine in Ireland and I really hope you are taking every opportunity to get out and enjoy it.

Thank you SO much for the comments and large number of emails I received in response to last weeks letter re the sad news of the passing of my very close friend, Caoimhe. I share with you always with the intention of helping you to build emotional resilience for your own challenges.

One of the things my beautiful friend Caoimhe shared with me, not long before she died and during one of my hypnotherapy sessions, was that all she wanted from life was to look at the sky, to walk with her dog, and to be in this world.

One of the many things we had in common was our love of our King Charles dogs.

Regular readers will know my little Rosie died just before Christmas. Caoimhe was a great support to me then, and shared how she couldn’t imagine how she would cope when her own dog, Poppy dies. Poppy is actually a full year older than Rosie was so we didn’t know how long she would live.

We never saw it coming that Caoimhe would go before Poppy. This is so, so sad.

I had shared with Caoimhe, and with anyone who would listen, my desire to get a new dog, one I could travel back to Ireland with and bring here to Crete, a small dog that could come on the plane in the cabin with me. I was met with mixed views. Are you sure you want to go through all that again, the work, the commitment, the training, the loss that will come?

YES, I said. YES I do want to go through all that, and more.

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Caoimhe understood. I had already chosen the name for our new dog, and she would ask in her chirpy voice, “Any news on Tabatha?”

Who knew that in the very same moments I heard of Caoimhe’s death, I would receive a phone call from a vet on the mainland in Greece, telling me that the puppy I had been waiting for was healthy and well cared for.

Her physical life was gone, and then on the screen I saw the little puppy who will be mine for, I hope, the next twelve to sixteen years.

I do not mean to suggest that a puppy can replace a person. That is quite frankly ridiculous. What I am suggesting is that we need to stay open to new life.

An open heart is a lighter one. And in this first week of having Tabatha, Taba for short, she has brought us all so much joy.

1. Feel it fully, then make room.
Grief and joy are not opposites. They can, and do, exist at the same time. We do not have to wait until the sadness has passed before we allow something new in. In fact, the depth of our grief is simply a measure of how fully we have loved. Honour that, and then gently, without rushing, make a little room.

2. Let new life find you.
We do not always have to go looking for what will heal us. Sometimes it arrives in the most unexpected moments, in a phone call, in a small creature on a screen, in a friend’s chirpy voice asking after a puppy not yet born into our lives. Stay open to the signals. Life is always reaching toward us, even when we cannot feel it.

3. Choose courage over protection.
The temptation when we are heartbroken is to close down, to decide that loving costs too much. And it does cost. But the alternative, a closed and guarded heart, costs far more. As I have seen in my years of clinical work, the people who suffer most are not those who loved and lost, but those who stopped allowing themselves to love at all. Staying open is an act of profound courage. It is also, I believe, the only way to truly live.

In other news, it has been a full house here, with Ciaran’s mum visiting for the last ten days, Luca’s gorgeous girlfriend is now here too, and we have a constant round of hosting and cleaning up after Tabatha, who is hell-bent on creating chaos as puppies do!

I have not been able to read much at all. I find grief is a real challenge to my focus, and I am doing my best to be patient and compassionate with myself, in the same way I would counsel a client to be.

Sending love and do let me know your news, views and any questions at any stage.

Fiona xxx