Why goodbyes are difficult
...and what they reveal about our deepest yearnings
Last week, I was in the Yorkshire Dales in the UK, attending a seven-day meditation and personal development retreat with 100 people. I’ve been doing this work for about 12 years now, but I joined this particular group only two years so I’m still getting to know everyone. On the last day of the retreat, as people started leaving and saying farewell to each other, my usual discomfort with goodbyes kicked in. I engaged in all sorts of distracting maneuvers, like clearing the table, making myself a cup of tea, and avoiding eye contact. Why was this so hard, I wondered?
Goodbyes are a recurring part of life, and necessary to create room for new beginnings. But they bring up a cocktail of difficult emotions. As Richard Strozzi-Heckler, an Aikido black belt and coach, wrote in The Art of Somatic Coaching:
“If we’ve been taught that emotions are taboo we can fall into the pattern of not completing in many areas of our life because emotions are integral to endings. When our emotional life isn’t given full expression in completions it’s more difficult to fully begin something, to start a new relationship, business, or creative opportunity.”
Underlying my restless behavior during the goodbye process at the retreat was this question: Who will say goodbye to me, and who will leave without doing that? Which translated to: do I matter to people here? Do I matter, in general? As I look back to my history, there were some emotional taboos associated with completions. The first thing that comes to mind is my family’s traumatic departure from Mozambique in the 1970s as a result of the Portuguese revolution. As the country celebrates 50 years of democracy this year, there has been more public dialogue about the impact of the war that led to the revolution, and the chaos, violence, and discrimination that returnees like my family members endured. They did not always feel that they mattered. And we did not always talk about the pain.
A common obstacle to goodbyes is our mind’s orientation to the future. We easily get pulled into whatever is next. Stopping to say goodbye can feel like a waste of time. We see this in daily life all the time: we leave quickly so that we don’t get stuck in traffic, arrive late to the next meeting, or lose that shiny new opportunity.
Goodbyes confront us with our unfinished business. During this retreat, I had been meaning to connect with the only other Portuguese-speaking person there, but there was never a perfect time or place. When I caught sight of her rolling out her carry-on suitcase towards the taxi, I felt a tinge of regret: why, oh why, hadn’t I made the effort?! I walked over, feeling awkward. “Let’s talk more next time”, I said, as we hugged farewell. But next time may never come.
Years ago, a man I had recently broken up with invited me for Thanksgiving with his son and his son’s girlfriend, just as we had done the year before. We remained good friends and I loved him dearly, but I thought it best to not give him “the wrong idea”, so I declined. I could tell by the way his voice sounded on the phone that he was hurt, and I felt my heart clench. “No, stay strong”, my mind intervened, “he needs to move on, this is the adult thing to do”. A couple of months later, I invited him to a party at my place, and he accepted. As we approached the date, I called him a couple of times to confirm, but he didn’t call me back, which was very unusual of him. Worried, I called his son’s girlfriend, who confirmed my worst fear: my friend had died of a heart attack a few days earlier. I don’t remember much of what was said next, all I recall is that there had been no memorial. For weeks, I couldn’t stop thinking about how sad he had been when I declined his invitation to Thanksgiving. This may sound ridiculous, but I believed that I had literally broken his heart. I eventually found my way to say goodbye, but I still feel regret for not listening to my heart. The gift in this loss is that it has made me more conscious when I interact with the important people in my life. I try to remember that this may be the last time I see them.
Goodbyes are indeed a rehearsal for death. They are arguably worse than death, because we’re there for the whole experience. Like being awake during surgery.
And we don’t just say goodbye to others, we also say goodbye to ourselves, in particular to our identities. Dancer and choreographer Martha Graham once said it beautifully:
A dancer dies twice- once when they stop dancing, and this first death is the more painful.
We may struggle with goodbyes because of the conventions and rituals associated. When my friend’s uncle passed away, instead of attending the funeral, he went to a cafe’ they both liked, sat at a table, and ate one of his uncle’s favorite pastries. This was my friend’s way to connect and say goodbye in a meaningful, personal way. I didn’t blame him. I remember attending the funeral of someone I barely knew in life, and crying my eyes out the entire time. The rituals seemed designed to elicit universal grief: languid violin music, excerpts from scripture reminding us of our sins, the widow carried in arms to the casket so she could place one final kiss on her beloved’s forehead... I made a mental note to update my living will with specific instructions for my final goodbye so that it reflected the joy and light that I want to leave behind.
Whatever your typical reaction to goodbyes is - be it slipping away unnoticed, hanging on for too long, or pretending it’s not happening- it’s a good idea to take a closer look into why you do that. The more we understand what’s at the root of our discomfort, the better choices we can make, not only about the kind of goodbyes we want but also about the way we appreciate what we have now.
Here’s an example of a wonderful goodbye. This week I attended the closing ritual of a team I founded 6 years ago. The current leader invited everyone who had been a part of the team over the years, including those who had since left the company (myself included) or who had been contractors. Forty-five people showed up, and we said goodbye to the mission and the work that brought us together, sharing fun memories and acknowledging each other’s contributions. I was deeply grateful to be a part of this special goodbye and inspired to face future ones with more courage and trust.
Carpe diem, everyone.
Ana Lucia Jardim is a Portuguese-American expert on change leadership. She helps leaders dance through the complexities of change by leveraging her 20-year experience in leading organizational transformation, and her background in dance and executive coaching. Watch the trailer of her keynote “Leaders Need to Be Artists” , or book a Pivot Power Hour to get coaching, expert advice and practical resources to bring change to life in your organization and your leadership. You can email Ana Lucia at AL@heyloyou.com.