Endings

Reflection

Today my class ends, but I still have to finish grading. I will be on a break for the holidays, but later I will be preparing for the spring semester when I will be teaching three class: Couples/Family Therapy, Existential Humanistic Perspective and Expressive Arts Intervention in Social Work Practice. I enjoy sharing a post by Frank Ostaseski about endings, which I often share. It's a beautiful post, and I've condensed it for you.

"I want to draw our attention to endings: the end of a day, the end of a meal, the end of something precious and rare, the end of this sentence.

How do you meet endings? I mean, most of us have some developed habits about the way in which we meet endings. Are you aware of your habits? Without any judgment or criticality, let’s just take a look to see what our relationship to endings are.

Like, when you go to a party, or you go to a conference: Do you have a tendency to leave emotionally or mentally before the conference is over or before the party’s over?

Or maybe you’re the one in the parking lot waving goodbye to everybody as they depart. Or maybe you find some way of cocooning yourself, isolating in some way, pulling back into a kind of protective stance.

Or perhaps you become ambivalent or indifferent about endings—maybe endings are very emotional for you. Maybe you get sad or scared. Let’s just take a look.

When you end a relationship, how do you do it? Do you try to shift it into some other form of relationship so that it will continue? Do you end it with a text? How do you say goodbye in the afternoon when you leave your work—do you say goodbye to your colleagues?

When a friend is sick and dying, do you go visit them? How do you meet endings? What are your patterns? Are you happy with the way you meet endings? You don’t have to be wedded to your old way of doing it. You have the freedom to change it, right here, right now.

I want to draw your attention to endings.

The way that we end something shapes the way the next thing begins. When we hang on to the past, it limits our capacity to welcome the new. A lot of times we hang on because we’re still demanding something of the past, wanting it to give us more of what we’d hoped to get from that situation—more success, more love. The more comfortable we are with endings, the more we can welcome the new and release the old.

The way that we end something shapes the way the next thing begins. When we hang on to the past, it limits our capacity to welcome the new. The study of endings is not morbid—it’s a beautiful practice that helps us step more fully into life, appreciating what is here while welcoming what’s to come."

After this, he goes on to a meditation on the breath and ask others to breath and reflect on ending. It is very beautiful.

Reflect on your endings.

With Palms together,

—Annecy Báez

I am an educator, psychotherapist, mixed media collage artist, and the author of "My Daughter’s Eyes and Other Stories." As a facilitator for SoulCollage® and Amherst Writers & Artists (AWA), I integrate energy healing, dreamwork, and writing to promote growth and connection. My work with individuals and groups is focused on empowering people to embrace their unique stories and tap into the healing power of creativity and self-expression.