“Every sunrise starts a new journey.”
I love how this quote reminds us that when we wake up each day, we get to start fresh. It’s a true gift to recognize that we do get to start anew every morning when we arise. Each dawn reminds us of the constant renewal that happens around us—in nature, and through the constant revolution of the Earth.
Our lives are full of new beginnings that don’t always start the way we have planned. Rather, we learn to let go and embrace those new beginnings in our own time and process. We create our own new dawns, in a larger sense.
Some new beginnings are harder to accept than others. We might hold onto yesterday’s love, job, or whatever it is we wish was still a part of today’s new dawn, until we are truly ready to grieve the loss of what we were holding on to.
When we are ready to grieve, we are a step closer to accepting the new beginning.
Relationships Experience New Beginnings
In my practice, I hear clients share their hopes of their own new beginnings. When it comes to couple’s therapy, our job is often to work on creating a new relationship story: a new beginning for the partnership. The couples learn to heal after a betrayal, or from the distance that developed in their relationship. We create space for the couple to think about what they want their new relationship to look like.
The transition to this “rebirth” can be challenging because it is less comfortable than reminiscing. There is a lot of hope in thinking, “Why can’t our relationship just go back to the way it used to be?”
I’ll share with you now what I often tell couples: to get to an even better relationship than we had before, we have to move on from and learn from the past.
We need the clarity of knowing what we want our new relationship story to look like. In order to gain that clarity of vision we truly have to let go of the past, and to heal from it. Then we move forward.
Accepting and being in the present is how we create a new beginning in the here and now.
Nature Shows Us the Necessity of New Beginnings
Nature gives us a really good metaphor for new beginnings. In my blog about coping with the anxiety of Hurricane Irma, the hurricane really served as a metaphor for being able to see change coming, embracing that change, and moving forward. Nature gives us hope, in its post-storm blue skies, and changing seasons. We see that when a storm hits, it’s scary and chaotic, but then after the storm there is calm and sunshine. With the cycle of seasons we see the long winter and then we see new life with growth on trees or new baby birds chirping in their nests.
There is an ebb and flow that comes with relationships, just as there is with seasons.
Relationships are not always sunny or amazing; relationships can be hard work when we go through our storms. They can also bring beautiful moments and new beginnings.
We have to learn to evolve or grow with our partner, so we aren’t stuck in the past. This is one reason why we can’t just think we need to go back to the beginning and everything will be fine. When we grow together, we share our stories of growth, creating excitement and aliveness—and continued commitment to honor and respect each other.
Growing in a relationship can sometimes be hard because it also means acknowledging parts that we have to let die. We might be letting go of dreams of the future we had established, or parts that once worked before that now don’t. If we don’t accept or honor the death of those particular dreams or relationship traits, then we can’t evolve into better versions of ourselves, or to evolve our relationship.
Again, in nature things have to die in order to bring new life. Leaves have to fall to allow for new leaves to grow. I remember once planting lilies. My mom told me that they would die and more bulbs would appear the next spring—so don’t give up on them. The same is true in relationships.
Parts of the relationship have to die or change, but don’t give up because new change appears.
Accepting Personal New Beginnings
New beginnings are part of our personal experiences, outside of our relationships with our partners. Each of us must look at how we change and grow in our own selves, creating our own amazing relationship with the self as well. New beginnings can be a new job change, healing from heartbreak, or moving to a new city.
There is so much power in these two words: New Beginnings.
When we look at healing parts of ourselves, we look at how to accept the death of whatever happened in our lives and embrace a new outlook on the present. And for the future, we have hope. New beginnings give us energy, excitement and a sense of aliveness once we can accept the loss of the old parts of ourselves.
No matter where you are in your life and what your struggles or stresses are, stop and remember that new beginnings are right around the corner or are already happening.
How Do We Start Our Journey into a New Beginning?
In a relationship, stop looking back at the past.
Look at each other and take a step forward together into the present moment.
- Ask your partner what does a new beginning look like to them?
- What parts of the relationship would you like to grow into something even more beautiful?
If you are going through your own new beginning, ask yourself,
- What am I learning about myself, in this time in my life?
- In which direction would l like to head?
If you are struggling with letting go, remember to breath first and know that letting go means we are embracing something new into our lives.
New isn’t bad. New is just different, and different is a good thing: it means regeneration is happening. Think about those seasons again, and remember that just as the seasons change, so do we. Let’s embrace the changes and welcome the new beginnings. Honor the journey of life, and all the different paths life brings us.
Change, loss and new beginnings are all part of our amazing adventure.