For those who might ask “What does that even mean?”, this is what I’m reading that triggered the question: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/transformative-experience/
Recent can mean the most recent you can remember, even if it was years ago. Interested in what y’all might say.
Started dating for the first time, experiencing genuine love for the first time, and breaking up and experience genuine sorrow for the first time about two years ago.
And cats. I adopted cats.
Genuine sorrow hurts, but my god if it isn’t a fascinating and powerful state. It’s 100% transformative, in a good way, if you allow it to be. Sorrow and the journey back, imo, is a vital trial in human development, all the more interesting because it’s truly universal. The risk is so hardening yourself against pain that it’s detrimental, the prize is a deeper capacity for empathy.
To love, and to lose, and to find your way back to love again - it doesn’t feel this way in the slough of despond*, but on the other end and with some time it’s a beautiful thing.
(*General statement - if you want to think more on this whole transformative experience thing in general, you could do worse than reading The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan. If you’re vehemently anti-Christian you’ll need to replace Yahweh, Sky Wizard ™ with your own conceptions, but the allegory itself still provides some palatable food for thought)