The Gifts of Grief

How grief helped me live a slower, simpler, more purposeful life

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Welcome to the Unbusy Revolution.

First of all, let me just say – although it’s been more than 7 years since since this loss at the time of writing, it’s still raw for me. I want to be very clear: grief is an intensely personal experience. If you’re moving through grief know that I’m here to affirm and appreciate your process, not judge, shame or question it.

Got it? K. Here we go.

Here’s my story of how grief helped me simplify my life, and how it might help you, too.

In the summer of 2016 I lost my goofy, vibrant, absolutely incorrigible Mum to cancer.

If you’ve ever lost someone this way, my heart goes out to you. It’s the absolute shits. There is no other way to put it.

I miss her presence in my life in a way that is impossible to put into words.

There were days during that time that I felt as though my body simply could not physically hold the grief; it was so much BIGGER than me. I couldn’t cry hard enough to move it through my body.

BUT.

Hard to believe there’s a BUT when the sky falls, but there is.

Buried under all that grief, loss, anger and sorrow, something materialized . . . a tiny, unexpected spark of joy was birthed beneath the immeasurable weight of my grief, like a diamond.

Hidden in my grief was one gloriously liberating truth:

The trouble is, you think you have time.

How could that possibly be liberating??? An intimate awareness of my own mortality? Liberating? Helpful? The seed of a transformative view of life?

Crazy, but oh so true.

What did I learn from that terrible, wonderful truth about death, loss, life and grief and what the heck did it have to do with living a simple, slow, purposeful life?

Life is shorter (maybe a LOT shorter) than we think.

Ok I know, flippant drivel from the isles of Hallmark or some slimy self-help guru.

The thing is, it’s a cliché until you live it. It’s trite until it’s true.

Mum passed in her early 60’s, in what should have been some of the most vibrant years of her life. She was healthy, happy . . . until suddenly one day she wasn’t.

Call it morbid, glass-half-empty, whatever.

Accepting that our time is fleeting was the first step in realizing :

Very few things actually matter.

At the end, my Mum’s successful career, her beautiful home, her endless worries (that we alllll have), none of that mattered. 

What mattered was family, the 40 years she had with my Dad, small memories and LOVE.

In the end, it all came down to love.

My sister and I were able to weather the unimaginable loss because of the parts of Mum’s life that mattered. Because she taught us to be kind and strong and to look after one another. To always know that no matter what, when shit hit the fan – we would always have our family.

Although she’s gone, all her acts of love remain:

My sister and I, our four kids, her lifetime of memories with our Dad, her beautiful garden and the contributions she made to her community, which incredibly included securing funding for much needed equipment at our local chemotherapy clinic while she was a patient there. 

Those acts of love, they are enduring and immutable. They are what really matter. Very little else that we spend our valuable time and attention on does.

Once you realize that pretty much nothing you thought matters, does, you can focus on redefining ‘success’.

My old career, my vain and self-centred ego-driven desires, finally I could see all that shit for what it was. How freeing to say forget that and just know.

‘Success’ for me now is about being of service. Sure, I need to make a living – but there are lots of ways to do that.

Suddenly, the question is not, How can I make money and cross off a bucket list of accomplishments?

Instead, the question becomes How can I earn a living while building a legacy of love?

How can I do that in a way that is useful to the world? That serves? That is somehow rooted in what really matters – love?

Knowing what really matters and redefining success leaves us free to experience time in abundance.

Once you realize time is limited, cut out all the shit and redefine success – you’ll find you DO have time for the stuff that matters.

When you’re doing things that matter, time slows down.

Think about an afternoon spent with your kids; watching clouds or just daydreaming. Imagine working on something you really love; painting, playing an instrument, working in your garden . . . Doesn’t your sense of time change? You get lost in it.

You’ve found your state of FLOW.

One of my main goals in living a slow and simple life is to get into that state of flow as much as humanly possible. That’s where the good stuff lives. And the joy.

Gratitude is the answer to everything.

I kept a daily gratitude journal while my Mum was ill. Specific and granular.

Even on days that left me on my knees, I forced myself to find at least three things, morning and night, to be grateful for. I forced myself to find the tiny sparks of joy amidst the grinding horror that enveloped me and my family.

Like Mr. Rogers always said, in times of trouble, his mother taught him to look for the helpers. So that’s what we did.

There were friends and customers who brought food or hugs of encouragement. The neighbours who checked in on my Dad. The hospital janitor who noticed me collapsing into a puddle of tears in the hall with a child in each hand and stopped to help.

These people and their random acts of love and kindness were stars I could point to for my kids and say :

See, the universe is not conspiring against us. There is still goodness everywhere. This is how we move through grief.

There is immense value in being grateful for the smallest and most mundane things.

Creating the time and space to notice and celebrate them is at the heart of slow living.

Grief is a gift, if we are willing to accept it.

Slow living and my experience of loss have fed into and supported one another.

Because I was already living a slow, simple and mindful life, I was able to lean in and experience my grief deeply. By being open to the fullness of my grief, I was given gifts of wisdom about the value of slowness that I couldn’t have earned any other way.

It was a virtuous circle, albeit a painful one.

The main thing I’d like to offer you from what I’ve learned – both in my grief and in my slow life here on the farm is this; life is painful.

Death, loss, heartbreak . . . Farm life is steeped in it. It can be gut-wrenchingly awful. It WILL bring you to your knees.

And that is OK.

All of it is good, even the days that the worst thing happens. Even the days you are broken open by grief.

If you want to truly be alive, to be present to your life in all it’s joy and miraculous moments of love and sheer delight at the brightness of being . . . then you must also be willing to embrace the darkness.

Birth cannot be without death. The real, unproductive and destructive pain comes when we try to deny that basic truth.

If you are open, you will see, as J.R.R. Tolkien wisely observed;

Are God’s punishments not also gifts?

Hello everyone,

As I get settled into Substack and find a rhythm, I wanted to let you all know that in my effort to seek alignment between my Slow Values and my work I’ve decided to switch up my posting format here a bit.

For the next while, I’ll try sending email on Sundays only. There will still be posts midweek - The Kitchen Sink Series and Slow Work pieces, but instead of blasting them out to you and overwhelming your inbox, I’ll leave links to them here.

Of course, as always, you can find them when posted in the app, but I hope this will help keep your inbox a little Slower.

Please let me know how this works for you.

Best, Stacey

This week at Slow Folk

• Looking to start your own Slow journey? Have no idea where to start? Slow in Seven, my mini guided workshop might be for you.

• I’ve launched a new program for new or aspiring entrepreneurs, Slow Folk Foundations. Designed to help you find clarity and a sense of direction as you build a solid, Slow foundation for your business idea.

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Stacey Langford is a writer, renegade farmer and slow business mentor living and working in Canada’s Fraser Valley. In 2010 Stacey ditched her cubicle in the city to turn her attention homeward, farm and help others craft a simple life, from scratch.

Are you ready to build a life - and a living - you actually love?

I help rebellious solopreneurs and creatives build businesses rooted in Slow Values. If you’re ready to step into your own Slow Life and finally claim your calling, let’s chat!