Unbreakable Bonds - The Lessons from Loss

In this episode, we confront the powerful teachings of grief and change. It begins with the heartbreaking tale of losing our cherished Golden Retriever, River, a loss that not only left an emotional void but also disrupted the patterns of our everyday lives. Together, we'll walk through the bittersweet memories and the moments that defined our relationship with our beloved pet. Through raw reflection, we explore how this loss forces us to reassess our habits, the routines we once took for granted, and the unexpected paths we must now forge without the familiar presence of a four-legged friend.

This personal journey is a testament to resilience, the necessity of adaptation, and the determination to create new beginnings amidst sorrow. As I share my story, I also delve into the broader themes of personal growth and transformation, even in life's most challenging times. You'll hear about the choices we face when familiar routines are upended and the courage it takes to embrace change and forge new habits. This episode serves as a heartfelt reminder that even in the face of loss, we're all capable of uncovering an unstoppable force within ourselves, pushing us beyond our perceived limits.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to Unstoppable Force Living Beyond Our Limits, the podcast where we take the rulebook of life, set it on fire and rise like a phoenix from the ashes new and unstoppable. I'm your host. Stu Darling, a former soldier and spy, turned mental wellness and personal development renegade, here to shake up the way you think, lead and live. This isn't your typical feel-good pep talk. We're diving into the messy, the uncomfortable and the downright wild parts of life to uncover what it really takes to unlock the unstoppable power within you. Expect unfiltered truths, stories that will make you laugh, cry or yell, hell yeah. And game-changing insights to fuel your next big leap. So buckle up. It is time to stop tiptoeing through life and start kicking doors in. You're not here to play small. You are here to live beyond your limits. Let's get into it. Hey team, welcome to this edition of the podcast.

Speaker 1: 1:12

Our dog died just over a month ago. It was really sad. She was nine and a half and the evening before she had still been full of life, chasing her toy rabbit across the garden. And you're really engaged. And when I got up in the morning to do my meditation and my journaling, she wasn't sleeping where she normally slept, and when I found her, I invited her outside. She'd normally jump up and run outside, do what she needed to do and then come straight back. And when I found her, I invited her outside. She'd normally jump up and run outside, do what she needed to do and then come straight back in again, expecting breakfast to be ready for her. But that morning she struggled to get up. She struggled to walk the few meters from where she was into the garden and when she got into the garden she collapsed and lay there. Even when lizzie came out to see her there were a couple of wags of the tails, but but nothing more. At some point during the night she had decided that her time in her earthly suit was done and less than two hours later her heart stopped. She was gone and it's left a hole. Yet every morning when I get up she's not there. When we come in from the car, that happy face isn't there. When Liz comes in from work, there's no puppy out of breath, so excited standing by the car door waiting for that apple core. We've got to do the housework. We've got to clean the floor because we don't have that four-legged vacuum cleaner anymore. It's sad. It's the first time really in all of our married life that we've not had a four-legged companion. We picked Megan up months before our daughter was born, and even when Megs walked across the Rainbow Bridge at the age of 13, we knew that we'd have another one, and that other one was Bailey. And Bailey only achieved the ripe old age of four and then, after that, river arrived.

Speaker 1: 3:54

But we've come to the conclusion that that needs to be it for the moment. It's time for a different phase in our lives, and that phase doesn't have a lunatic golden retriever puppy in it, and it's caused us to think deeply about how our lives are going to change, how they're already changing. I've already mentioned we've got to do, you know. We've got to vacuum the floor, we've got to mop the kitchen floor. Lizzie no longer has a companion to walk with. She's got to figure out what her exercise regime now looks like because River's no longer around.

Speaker 1: 4:38

It's just weird. We're being forced to change our habits because the other option is that we just do nothing, we just sit and don't go for those walks because there isn't a lead to hold anymore. It's just so sad. But change our habits we must, because we're not old. We've got life left in us, so we've got to figure out what that looks like and we've got to get into the new habit of creating new habits.

Speaker 1: 5:20

We've got to make a choice here to say, actually, I am going to go out for a walk, weird as it seems, I'm going to go for a walk without a dog, but I'm going to go and do it. We have the opportunity now to, hey, let's just go away for the weekend and not feel guilty about the fact that we're going to have to find someone or a kennel who's willing to look after our responsibility, our pet. And we're having those conversations at the moment. How do we go about doing it? How do we reset? How do we set those new habits? And we have a responsibility to set these new habits. We've got a responsibility to river to say our life goes on and we've got a responsibility to one another to say this is an opportunity for us to move freely into the next phase of life. You know, over the Of life, you know, over the Christmas break, I was Planning to head down To Visit our son and Lizzie was planning to come along as well. But I, we had to find a home for River for while we were away, and we did. But then that home wasn't needed and we had the freedom to go. We have the freedom to travel to the United States in a few months time without that thought of having to put River into kennels for the time that we are away. Isn't it weird that sometimes freedom doesn't feel quite as free?

Speaker 1: 6:57

We've got to change our habits and that's difficult because our habits are deeply ingrained in who we are, our habits, in fact we were born with our habits. Our habits are the results of the activities of our parents and their parents and their parents before them. Our habits are born out of the society that we grew up in, of the faith that we were born into. Unless we choose to say I'm doing something different. I talk about this in Unstoppable Living Beyond your Limits, my new book New, it's been out a year.

Speaker 1: 7:39

We've got to take that rucksack off our back, that rucksack that's got all of the habits, all of the values, all of the life that we were born into, and we've got to unpack it. We've got to spread it out on the grass and say which bits do I want to keep, which bits are not serving the life I choose to live, and we get rid of them. It's not quite as easy as that, but we say, actually I don't, you're not, you're not servicing me anymore, you're not helping me head where I want to head, and consciously say goodbye to them. And in that space where we've said no, in that space where we've consciously said no, no, thank you, there is a hole to fill. Now we can fill that hole with those other habits and values that we now say, actually you're still quite handy, you're still useful. I'm going to pack you back into that rucksack, I'm going to pop you back on my shoulders because I need you moving forward, those standards that I choose to live to, and then we can choose.

Speaker 1: 8:48

Right, what are we doing with the gaps? Now? There's nothing wrong with leaving those gaps, not taking those old burdens and just replacing them with new ones. But what life do we choose to live? That's the question that Liz and I are facing now, without a golden retriever bouncing around the walls, how do I choose to live my life now? And we've got to do it through awareness, because if we don't, we will just drift and in 12 months time we'll be in exactly the same place. So let's be aware of the gaps that we have created by offloading those useless habits.

Speaker 1: 9:39

Habits, yeah, let's be aware of the gap that river has left in our lives. And with that gap left in our lives, choose what to do. That is what 95%, probably more than that, that's what 98% of the population don't bother doing. They just drift through life on autopilot, conforming. They just drift through life on autopilot, conforming. Make the choice. Choose to be aware of the life that you choose to live. That is why we were put here. We weren't put here to be slaves. We weren't put here to be clones. We were put here to be the amazing, unique individuals that we truly are.

Speaker 1: 10:20

And when we have big, life-changing events, like the death of a pet or the death of a family member, it's our responsibility to recognize their lives by saying I am going to live mine. By saying I am going to live mine. This is how I choose to spend my time in this earthly suit. But even if it's not something as catastrophic as a death, we can waken up every morning and choose to live. We can wake up every morning and say right, what didn't serve me yesterday? What am I going to leave behind? What am I going to do different today? That's going to build a new habit that makes me aware of the life I am living.

Speaker 1: 11:06

River had an awesome life and we had an awesome decade with her as part of our lives. Yeah, it's sad that she's gone, but we can actually take that sadness and create something beautiful from it. She still lives on in our hearts. She's not really gone away. It's just the earthly suit that's gone. Take that responsibility for all of our lives, live with awareness and truly live. I'll see you next time. That is it for today's episode of Unstoppable Force Living Beyond Our Limits. If you're feeling fired up and ready to take on the world, don't keep it to yourself. Share the love. Send this episode to a friend who needs a little push, or, hey, just send it to your entire contact list and don't forget to subscribe so you'll never miss a dose of unstoppable energy. Leave a review if today's episode hit you where it feels or gave you that aha moment. Your feedback keeps this rocket fuel coming. Until next time, keep pushing, keep growing and remember the only limit is the one you refuse to break. See you next time.