Saturday Contemplation – Letting Things Stay Unfinished

This week’s Saturday Contemplation sits with the truth that many parts of our lives don’t get the endings we hoped for. Conversations fade, relationships drift, and chapters close without warning. Instead of forcing closure, this contemplation explores what softens in us when we let some things remain unfinished.

WWDT+ is being put on pause for now which means all Saturday Contemplations will be free moving forward (you can also listen to all of the old ones now too). They may not happen every single week, but the plan is to release one anytime there’s a new podcast episode.

If you’d like to support the project, you can still do that through the donation link just below. Every bit helps keep this work going.

Chapters

• 0:00 Project Update And Free Contemplations
• 0:25 Seasonal Pause And Reflection
• 1:02 Guided Breath And Settling
• 1:40 Incomplete Endings And The Mind’s Stories
• 2:59 Sensing The Body’s Response
• 4:12 Allowing Unfinished Things To Rest
• 5:20 Softness As A Kind Of Closure
• 6:16 Returning To The Present And Closing

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Welcome back, or welcome here if this is your first time. I have something I wanted to share before we jump into this week's contemplation. I've decided to put a pause on When We Dietox Plus for now. I'm working on a side project that will live alongside When We Dietox, so all of the Saturday contemplations moving forward are going to be free. This one would have been free anyway, since it's the first Saturday of the month, but it felt like the right moment to open everything up. If you want to support the project as it continues to grow, there's still a support the project link in the show notes. It's a simple way to help me keep this work going, and I really appreciate anyone who chooses to do that. And since we're already in a moment of transition, it feels right to acknowledge the season we're entering into. The colder days, the darker mornings, the slow shift towards winter. This time of year almost asks us to pause, to look back, to take stock, to feel where our lives have been moving. And that reflection is exactly where today's contemplation begins. Let's begin with a deep breath in and out. Again in and out. Let your body soften. Let your shoulders relax. Sense the space around you grow quieter. Even just a little. Feel your breath moving naturally in and out. Not everything in your life gets the ending you hope for. There's maybe even a joke here where I stop talking right now and call it a contemplation. But don't worry, I won't. Some moments stop mid-sentence. A conversation you thought you returned to, a goodbye you assumed you'd have time for, an apology you believed could wait. Some relationships stay unresolved. Not because you didn't care, but because life moved quickly, messily, unpredictably, the way life always does. And when something ends without closure, the mind steps in to finish the story. It fills the gaps with guesses, judgments, self-blame, what-ifs, and imagined endings that are often harsher than the truth. Take another slow breath in here and let it out. If you can, bring to mind one place in your life where the ending felt incomplete. You don't have to revisit the whole memory, just the shape of it, the outline. Maybe it's a relationship that drifted apart. Maybe it's someone you loved who died before you could say the things that you meant to say. Maybe it's a version of you you outgrew without realizing it. Whatever arises, let it come gently. Notice how your body responds. Is there a tightening of the chest? A weight in the throat? A heat behind the eyes. A familiar ache you don't usually slow down long enough to feel. There's nothing to fix here. Nothing to force. Just noticing. Take another breath. Life rarely offers perfect endings. It ends chapters in the middle of sentences. It moves people in and out of our lives without asking what we prefer. And so much of being human is learning how to carry what never got resolved. But there is relief and even peace in letting some things remain unfinished. Not forgotten. Not dismissed. Just allowed. Allowed to be exactly what they were. Allowed to stop where they stopped. Allowed to no longer demand your energy in the same way. Let yourself imagine loosening your grip on that memory by just a few degrees. Not dropping it, not erasing it, just softening around it. Softness is its own kind of closure. And as you breathe, notice what happens when you stop trying to rewrite the ending. Notice the space that opens. Notice the small, subtle release. Like your body acknowledging something it's been holding for a long time. You're still here, still breathing, still free to choose what you carry and what you can finally set down. Take another deep breath here and let it out. Take a moment here. As this contemplation ends, notice what's around you right now. The light, the sound, the feeling of being alive. That is why we do this. Thank you for listening and for being a part of this practice. Saturday contemplations are a weekly way to pause, sit with the reality of death, and notice how it shapes the way we live. Until next time, have a good life.