Ten Years Too Late - A day of life

I’m rarely on Facebook messenger. The people who know me have my number and so I never focus on checking my messages on there. Two years ago, in an idle moment when I was clearing out some messages from various people in an IFS therapy group I’d recently started, I found a message from someone that had been sent ten years previously.

This is what it said

‘Hi Hilly

Thanks for reading Hilly Barker! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

You may not remember me, but at one time you were my life coach for a while. You've probably coached thousands of people in your time, so I don't expect you to remember who I am, anyway I just wanted to let you know what a positive influence you had on my life.

I've grown in so many ways since your coaching and whilst I understand that I am responsible for making that change happen, I also realise I may never have gained that perspective without your initial guidance and for that I am truly grateful.

Someone recently told me that I was their inspiration, usually people are quick to complain about things and often don't take the time for the 'good' messages, so after I got that message I decided I would find your profile and send you this.

May you achieve everything you hope for in 2013.’

She had signed it.

I was absolutely thrilled to see this message. The lady who sent it to me was one of my earliest clients and so our work together had meant a lot to me. She had changed so much both in her life externally and in her inner world and I had been so honoured to have been part of that transformation.

I replied immediately

‘I am so happy to have heard from you and I do remember you! I have only just discovered your message. I don’t do very much on Facebook so I never check messenger.

I almost can’t believe it, I was thinking about you only two days ago. This is such lovely synchronicity! How wonderful that I have finally seen your message. Thank you very much for sending it to me.

I am so glad to know that I was the person to support you at the beginning of your journey and that you have gone on to inspire others. That is truly wonderful!

If we do it right, we all keep growing.

With love and appreciation.’

I signed it.

When I say that I was excited, this was an understatement. It felt so deeply special that we would reconnect and I was very touched by her message. Often we work with people and then they go and live their lives, as they should, and we don’t necessarily hear from them again. This was especially true years ago when there was no social media, only email.

I immediately went onto her Facebook profile and see what she had been doing over the years. I didn’t want to wait a minute to reconnect with her.

I found her profile and saw a beautiful photo of her. She hadn’t really changed despite the almost 20 years since I’d seen her. I felt a huge wave of affection sweep over me. I just couldn’t wait to hear her news.

Then I saw it

‘Remembering S.

We hope that people who love S. will find comfort in visiting her profile to remember and celebrate her life.’

I felt this statement like a stab in my sternum. It felt like my ribs would cave in on themselves. I felt my jaw tighten and tears began pricking at my eyes. The lumpy throat. The pain in my head. I wasn’t able to contain what I felt. I was flooded by overwhelm and sadness. This knocked me sideways and I cried.

I felt sad for days after this news.

Many, many of my parts were activated

The part that felt guilty for not checking my messages more thoroughly. How could I have been so stupid?

The part that felt regret at my not having reached out to her anyway during the time since we had worked together.

The part that felt the loss of the connection that, for those few moments, I had believed would be.

The part that felt that I had missed out.

The part that held the feeling that I had let her down which then went on to imagine how she may have felt, thinking I might have seen the message from her but I had never bothered to open and to read it.

This part in particular hit me very hard.

The inner critic part that berated me for being so utterly useless.

There was also a part of me that felt an enormous sense of loss.

And there I was, completely blended, overtaken by my sad part and hour by hour, each of the different parts came in to focus. They took it in turns. I felt a form of physical agony and the part that holds feelings of grief about missed opportunities of all kinds, as well as loss in general, popped in and out too, in and out as my parts each took their turn. The carousel of parts spun. I spun. I felt wrung out, deflated and physically exhausted.

Connecting with and honouring our feelings

It is hard to stay connected to our feelings, feelings about anything that happens in our lives, let alone something that comes out of the blue. It brought up so many old sadnesses, so much grieving for the loss of loved ones, so much regret about all kinds of things, guilt even. Parts defy logic and reason so the feelings can go literally anywhere, old emotions return. Memories resurface.

I did my very best simply to acknowledge all the feelings that my parts had been presenting me with during the course of that day, even if very momentarily. It felt like an enormous task to stay focused in the present moment, connected, one of the things that I practice as part of a mindful life.

In the minutes that I had to myself I held my hands over the centre of my chest, on my heart chakra, closed my eyes, took deep breaths and told all my parts that I am safe, that we are safe and that I would be there for them later, when I have time. I practised 4–7-8 breathing too, as well as massaging my vagus nerve to help regulate my emotions. Nevertheless, it was a struggle.

These things did help me, but now the real work began.

Next time

Next time I’ll be describing some of my process, the ways in which I honoured and cared for those parts of me that were suffering.

Sending love to everyone who would like some today x