Widow Life: Living in a Constant State of Conflation 2.0

What's the Solution?

Dear WL Community,

In Part One of “Living in a Constant State of Conflation 1.0”, we learned that we live in a world that likes clarity, but grief rarely offers that. Instead, it gives us duality. A duality that is shared by many others.

After some research on conflation, I began to see —this overlapping of identities, emotions, timelines, or realities—isn’t just something widows experience. It actually touches many people navigating deep transformation, trauma, or dual realities.

Those navigating dual realities are often categorized as the marginalized and deeply affected by a culture of indifference.

Here are some examples:

1. Caregivers:

Especially those caring for aging parents or ill partners or perhaps minors caring for adult parents in their dysfunction. They live in the tension between loving someone deeply and mourning what’s being lost, even before death.

2. Refugees and Immigrants:

They often carry the weight of homes left behind while building a new identity in unfamiliar places. Gratitude and grief walk side by side.

3. Survivors of trauma or abuse:

Healing doesn’t erase memory. Many live in the paradox of reclaiming joy while managing triggers, feeling safe and unsafe, strong and vulnerable.

4. Parents who’ve lost a child:

They live between life before and after. Celebrating the children still with them (if they have any) while aching for the one who isn’t.

5. People in recovery (from addiction, mental health struggles):

They live with pride for their progress, but often still wrestle with shame or memories of darker days. There’s constant integration of the “then” and “now.”

6. LGBTQ+ individuals navigating coming out:

Many experience a merging of who they were expected to be and who they truly are—grieving lost years while embracing authenticity.

7. Adult children of estranged or deceased parents:

They may hold love and resentment, or unresolved grief and relief, all at once.

8. Anyone going through a major life shift (divorce/ separation, job loss, spiritual awakening, disability, immigration, deportation):

They often straddle old identities and emerging ones. The past isn’t gone, but it’s no longer fully home.

“Conflation is, in many ways, a hallmark of deep human complexity. It means we’re evolving. It means we’ve loved, lost, survived—and are still becoming.” - Carolyn Moor

True 'becoming' asks for compassion, patience, open hearts and minds—and longer, deeper listening. Yet these are the very things modern life so often pulls us away from. In many ways, the pace of today has tempted us to be less human, and less humane. Isn’t it true?

The solution is simple, but not easy: we must reclaim what modern life has stolen.
We slow down. We choose presence over performance.
We extend radical compassion to ourselves and others.
We make space—real, unhurried space—for deeper conversations, longer silences, and truer connections.
We practice being human again, on purpose.
Because healing humanity starts one soul at a time—with yours, with mine, with ours.

Those living in conflation often struggle to be truly seen and understood by society. Genuine understanding requires intentional time, presence, and a willingness to connect deeply with another human being.

“What is misunderstood, will be underserved” - Richard Branson suggests that neglecting to understand the needs and perspectives of others, leads to failure of effectively serving their needs.

We crave clarity. We’re UNcomfortable with contradiction.

Most systems—healthcare, religion, workplaces, even friendships—prefer people to fit into tidy categories: grieving or healed, strong or struggling, past or present, either/or.

But those “in conflation” live in the both/and.

They’re healing and hurting.

Grateful and grieving.

Capable and deeply changed.

That kind of truth doesn’t fit into checkboxes or timelines. It requires compassionate presence, patience, and listening—which are harder to offer than explanation, advice or fixes.

Here’s how society behaves when it struggles with those in conflation:

• Mental health care often pushes for outcomes over process.

• Workplaces don’t always know how to accommodate invisible, ongoing grief or trauma.

• Faith communities sometimes rush people toward redemption or meaning, instead of letting lament linger.

• Friends and family may ask, “Aren’t you over that yet?”—not out of cruelty, but out of discomfort with the ongoing nature of deep change.

And yet, the truth is: Conflation isn’t a problem to solve. It’s a reality to be witnessed.

The invitation for society is this: to grow in compassion for complexity. To be okay sitting beside someone in their “both/and” without needing to resolve it — aka “holding space”.

When we start honoring conflation as part of real life—not as an exception, but a feature of humanity—we begin creating spaces where people can be fully seen, supported, and loved in all their layers.

As a widow mentor, my role is sacred—and powerful. I walk alongside others who are living in this space of conflation….. and you do too with empathy born from your own journey.

If you have someone in your life facing conflation and want to understand them better - Here are 7 tips I’d suggest to guide and support widows (and society) in embracing this complexity: