How to deal with loss
We lose things all the time.
Sometimes it’s intentional and sometimes it isn’t. Loss can be the littlest of things, as well as the biggest. It can be for our greater good or working against it, and no one is immune to it.
Loss covers all manner of things, the intangible as well as the tangible. Sometimes the loss happens quickly, and sometimes it happens so slowly we don’t even notice. Old beliefs, outdated ideas, friends from way back, dreams we once held close and identities that no longer fit all slide out of our lives.
On the triangle alongside grief and sadness, loss is the final tip, with all three points feeding into each other in a story that I want to explore.
The relationship between loss and grief
Grief isn’t something I can claim to have truly experienced like others have. What I do know is that to feel grief means you have a great capacity to love.
While I have encountered it in the death of those that I love and care for, as well as witnessing it in those around me, I haven’t lost myself in the depths of darkness that I know grief can reach to.
I have a wonderful friend who once described grief as a large book that sits on an empty bookcase. Over time, the bookcase fills with other books; the stories and adventures of your life, but the book on grief stays there, never moving, never changing.
Grief seemingly isn’t something that ever grows smaller, our lives merely grow up around it.
If we lose something that we’re not ready to let go of then grief is what comes up and out of the most primal places within us. If we use people as an example, none of us are ready to lose those that we love or let go of how we feel by having them in our lives, which is why we grieve so hard.
We can also grieve for other things we lose that have meaning and value in our lives, whether it’s losing a home, a job or a position; we lose the security, comfort and familiarity, as well as the safety, self-esteem and validation that comes with losing these too.
Grief can also rise up in subtle ways when we’re not conscious of how valuable something is to us until it’s gone.
It could be a loss of trust in someone close to us. It could be a loss of identity as we move from one stage of life to another. It could also be losing a belief about the world that’s shaped our entire existence. What happens is that we end up grieving without even realising it.
Grief comes in all forms, loss is merely the surface of the ocean, something we glance at before we plunge down into the sea of pain in our hearts.
How loss shapes our grief
Loss is a part of this beautiful life, but it can hit us hard, especially when don’t understand that it is actually grief that we’re feeling.
Grief isn’t something that any of us can avoid, but once we understand the loss behind the grief and what it is that’s really causing us so much pain, we can begin to start healing our hearts.
Loss isn’t something we can often control. As I mentioned earlier, it can be intentional or unintentional, and if it’s losing a person then we rarely get any say in it at all. But we can control our response to it.
This is where letting go can be so powerful in the healing process. It’s not up to any of us to demand that people stay in our lives, as much as we want them to, and we have to start acknowledging that each of us has our own soul path that must not be interfered with.
I believe we have freewill to a point, and then we must let go of holding things close to us, and give whatever we’re reluctant to lose free reign to choose its own path.
This then allows us the freedom to find peace in the loss.
However, losing something intentionally, or rather the process of letting go, doesn’t mean we can’t grieve. Even if it was our choice to experience loss, grief is always in our shadow, following closely behind.
Why we feel sadness in our lives
Alongside loss and grief, sadness also sits on the triangle of sorrow.
Sadness is neither grief nor loss, it’s more intentional than that. Sometime sadness can linger around us as we move out of the dark stages of grief and it’s felt when we look over our shoulders into the past, wishing we could go back in time.
It pulls us straight out of the present moment and back into past, seemingly happier, times.
Sadness can easily cast us adrift but the best way to keep tethered to the present is to stay in a state of awareness and gratitude for our lives around us. When we’re in this headspace we are no longer sifting through the murky waters of the past and can see with clarity all that shines brightly in our lives now.
We all have blue days but if they are stacking up more frequently, there’s something that the sadness is trying to communicate with us.
It could be that we need to make physical changes such as what we’re eating, moving our bodies or getting out in nature. It could be something emotional, perhaps we’re spending our time doing something that brings us no joy or we’re locked into past happier times and need to meditate ourselves out of it with mindful activities and inspiration from external sources.
Or it could be something that resides deep within us, perhaps at the core of who we are and what we came here to do.
Sadness acts as a signpost, telling us that we are out of alignment and balance, and that there’s disharmony somewhere in our existence. Most often, sadness creeps in when our soul is longing for something and we’re not heeding its call.
All we need is to find the tools to understand what it’s trying to tell us. Maybe we need time to heal, maybe we need to go inwards, maybe we need comfort or maybe we just need to be heard.
Understanding your feelings
I lost a few things this year, some that I consciously chose let go of and some that I didn’t, and I only realised today that I’m still grieving.
Relationships, love, friendship and homes came and went, and it’s been a winding and wiggly journey to centre myself ever since.
We will all feel loss in different ways, both physically and emotionally. I’ve had moments this year where I’ve clutched my heart and found it hard to breathe, followed by hacking coughs, as well as hot tears that I’ve been unable to stem. This all makes sense because as Traditional Chinese Medicine knows, grief sits in the lungs and cortisol is released through our tears.
I’ve also felt intense sadness, which I’m sure rose up from thinking back to happier times when life didn’t feel so raw and intense.
So, if you feel like you’ve lost something and it’s making you feel sad, perhaps you’re grieving and perhaps now is the time to be exceptionally compassionate with yourself and let the grieving process come through and out of you.
Give yourself time, patience, as well as your compassion and love as you navigate your way through life.
Perhaps you can close the book and put it on your bookshelf, begin the process of letting go and start healing your heart. You will be a stronger person because of it, I promise.
Want to receive the latest blog posts straight to your inbox? Sign up for my newsletter and you’ll also receive your FREE ‘Discover Your Fear Saboteur’ guide, the ultimate guide to identifying the fear sabotaging your potential!
