Today's Heartlift with Janell
Sometimes the story we tell ourselves is not really true. Sometimes the story others tell about us is not really true. On "Today's Heartlift with Janell," Author, Trauma-informed, board-certified marriage and family specialist, and Professional Heartlifter, Janell Rardon, opens conversations about how emotional health and mental fitness effects absolutely every area of our lives. When we possess and practice healthy, strong, resilient emotional health practices, life is so much better. Read Janell's newest book, "Stronger Every Day: 9 Tools for an Emotionally Healthy You."
Today's Heartlift with Janell
289. Transitions and New Beginnings: Embracing Life's Cycles
As we transition from the warmth of summer to the crispness of autumn, we're reminded of the cyclical nature of life—how endings inevitably lead to new beginnings. This episode invites you to contemplate these shifts, using the changing seasons as a metaphor. We reflect on the poignant insights from John O'Donohue's essay "Beyond Endings." By embracing the impermanence of life, we uncover the hope that even the slightest brightening can bring to our hearts and minds. This journey of imagination invites you to see beyond your immediate struggles and discover a fertile ground of potential and creativity within you.
This episode emphasizes personal growth, healthier behavior patterns, and stronger communication skills. I extend an invitation to you to join the conversation on Heartlift Central, creating a community of mutual support. Always remember your intrinsic value, worth, and dignity, and know that your heavenly Father profoundly loves you.
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Today's episode is brought to you in full by Heart Lift International, a 501c3 dedicated to making home and family the safest, most secure place on earth. Learn how you can donate and support the podcast at heartliftcentralcom. Now settle in for today's remarkable conversation with Janelle. Wherever you find yourself today, may these words help you become stronger in every way.
Speaker 2:Hello and welcome to today's Heart Lift with Janelle. I'm Janelle, your host for today's short conversation. I'm Janelle, your host for today's short conversation. We are in the transitional seasons here in the States, moving from summer to autumn, one of my favorite, favorite times of the year, particularly because I have a birthday and now I have a daughter-in-law with a birthday and a grandson with a birthday. So October is quite fun. It was always just my solo birthday, but now I get to share it, which is lovely. So, as we are experiencing transition, with transition comes an ending, an ending of one season and the threshold of a new season. So I thought it would be lovely in our transitional time here on this episode, to read a beautiful essay from John O'Donohue in his beautiful book To Bless the Space Between Us. If you are a heartlifter here, you know how much I love this poet.
Speaker 2:He writes beyond endings. Endings seem to lie in wait, absorbed in our experience, we forget that an ending might be approaching. Consequently, when the ending signals its arrival, we can feel ambushed. Perhaps there is an instinctive survival mechanism in us that distracts us from the inevitability of ending, thus enabling us to live in the presence with an innocence and wholeheartedness. Were we to be haunted by the prospect of ending, we could not give ourselves with freedom and passion. It's hard to think about an ending, isn't it? Endings are strange. Usually they leave us disturbed and bereft. For instance, when we look back on a relationship that ended, there is often such a contrast between the innocence and joy of how it initially unfolded and the soreness and protrusion of its ending. Back then, we could never have imagined or foreseen such an ending, yet somehow within it the seed of such a conclusion must have been already germinating. How quietly and irreversibly inevitability can build within something. During each new stage, it is strengthening its grip on finality.
Speaker 2:Sometimes, in the unfolding of a situation, there can be a moment when the danger of the ending is glimpsed. Action can be undertaken to engage with the forces that are in collusion with finality. With difficulty and concentrated care, the situation can be retrieved and renewed. Often, the very threat of ending can be what animates and develops a relationship. Indeed, the prospect of death is probably the greatest single inspiration of human creativity and passion. The brevity of our presence here is suddenly brought into sharp relief and intensifies our sense of urgency. On the other hand, endings can be such a relief when we suffer, we long for it to end. When we are in pain, time crawls. It also darkens and imprisons our imagination. Consequently, we are unable to see beyond the suffering that plagues us.
Speaker 2:Often, the greatest gift in such a situation is when someone manages to persuade the eyes of the heart to glimpse the vaguest brightening. I almost feel like that is my newest mission, after moving through the summer. These are my words here. Moving through the summer of sincere difficulty, I feel like I want desperately to do nothing but to persuade your eyes, heart lifter, your eyes of the heart, to glimpse the vaguest brightening. He continues. Then the imagination takes hope from that and constructs a path of light out of the darkness. That's what I hope here for you. These are my words. I hope that I can somehow persuade the eyes of your heart to glimpse the vaguest brightening in order that you can construct a path of light out of your own darkness. Every word I write, everything I've ever done within this private practice that I've had these past 13 years is to hope, to bring a glimpse of brightening into the hearts of those who have perhaps no hope of getting out of the darkness.
Speaker 2:He continues. Such endings offer great promise and bring us to the edge of new possibility. There we are. That's the work I hope we're doing here to come to the edge of new possibilities in our life.
Speaker 2:They are nascent beginnings this is one of the fascinating characteristics of consciousness. Unlike the world of matter, in the world of spirit, where you and I live, I add a whole territory that has been fallow, lame. Fallow, can become a fertile area of new potential and creativity. Time behaves differently in the domain of spirit. I have to repeat that. I have to take a pause. Time behaves differently in the domain of spirit, we would say here, in the domain of liminality, of liminal space, where we go beyond what we can see with our eyes and we move into what we see with the eyes of our heart and our faith.
Speaker 2:He continues experience has its own secret structuring. Endings are natural. Often, what alarms us as an ending can in fact, be the opening of a new journey. Here we are, a new beginning that we could never have anticipated, one that engages forgotten parts of the heart. Okay, I'm pausing again, pausing again, john O'Donohue, is there a part of your heart, heartlifter, that has forgotten Hope you have forgotten. There's some forgotten part of your heart, the heart, heart that has perhaps dreamed, hoped, had incredible bold faith. He writes.
Speaker 2:Due to the current overlay of therapy terminology in our language, hello, everyone now seems to wish for closure. This word is unfortunate. It is not faithful to the open-ended rhythm of experience. Just think right now. I'm adding, it is a new season, which means things change. Yes, they do. They're unimaginably filled with angst and pain and confusion and unknowingness. But we want to enter the cloud of unknowing and anticipate what that is about to shower upon us. Closure is a word that, perhaps, is unfortunate. It is not faithful to the open-minded rhythm of experience. Creatures made of clay with porous skin and porous minds are quite incapable of the hermetic sealing that the strategy of closure seems to imply. We're going to have to lean in here. The word completion is a truer word.
Speaker 2:All right, each experience has within it a dynamic of unfolding and a narrative of emergence. A narrative of emergence. Oscar Wilde once said the supreme vice is shallowness. Whatever is realized is right. When a person manages to trust experience and be open to it, the experience finds its own way to realization. Though such an ending may be awkward and painful, there is a sense of wholesomeness and authenticity about it. When a person manages to trust experience and be open to it, the experience finds its own way to realization. Then then the heart will gradually find this stage has run its course and the ending is substantial and true. Eventually, the person emerges with a deeper sense of freedom, certainty and integration. Oh, my, my, my, my, my.
Speaker 2:Perhaps, like me, heartlifter, this summer season has brought to you, season has brought to you some endings. They may have taken you off guard, they may have been anticipated. Like myself, retirement. I wasn't quite sure that I would be completely ending my time of private practice, but it seems, as it is time and you know I love God's way of bringing a Kairos time in Kronos time. And situations unfolded, life unfolded, the anticipation of a fourth grandchild and now a fifth one coming in a few weeks. It just seems time to end a work and a passion that I have loved for 13 years and beyond that honestly helping, listening, trying to bring light to people that are in dark places.
Speaker 2:But a medical crisis invited an ending and I must obey, I must listen. Have you found yourself in that place this year? Perhaps you have met an ending of over worrying, over caring, over functioning, over thinking. Maybe you have come to the end of something in your life that you're like I can't do this anymore. I am done. Yeah.
Speaker 2:As scary as that is, heartlifter, may the words of John O'Donohue give you hope, and may our time together here today give you a glimpse of what perhaps is on the horizon, because you can't have a beginning without an ending right. And so, as sad as I am, on one hand, because we hold things in two hands here the sorrow of closing one chapter of my professional vocational life leads me to the anticipation of an opening of of great movements that God has in his mind that I have yet to find out about. So I am hoping that in my life I have more focus, I can spend more time authoring and writing for you and writing for an audience that needs hope and encouragement, inspiration, and I hope for you that you find a beginning of more freedom in your life, because that's why we're here. Isn't it To grow, to become healthy, to have a healthy sense of self say it with me healthier behavior patterns and, even healthier, stronger communication skills.
Speaker 2:Heartlifter, I really care deeply about you and I would love to hear your thoughts. Please meet me over on Heart Lift Central at Heart Lift Central. Tell me what you're thinking. Where would you like to see the podcast go? What would you like to hear about? And, most importantly, I want to hear how to pray for you. So I'll meet you there and, until then, know how much you are loved by your heavenly Father, heavenly love.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening today. Please meet Janelle over at Heart Lift Central on Substack at Heart Lift Central, where we can keep this remarkable conversation going. Please share today's episode with a friend and invite them to become stronger every day. Heartlifter, always remember this you have value, worth and dignity.
