Henry Cloud was once asked “What is the most important lesson we need to teach our children?” He answered very simply, “How to deal with loss.”
This very wise and profound statement struck a chord with me. As someone who witnesses people dealing with grief and loss in my office every single day, I realized he’s absolutely right. We, as a culture, just don’t know how to deal with loss! We are so programmed to strive for success that we are completely caught off guard when a loss occurs, big or small!
In response to loss, many of us spend so much of our time reacting to the fact that a loss has occurred, that we aren’t even dealing with the loss itself. We do what I call “flailing” – picture that someone has pushed you off of a cliff and your arms and legs are flailing in the air and you are screaming in terror. Or we live in denial – pushing aside what happened and trying to go on as if it didn’t happen. Many of us kill pain with alcohol, drugs, sex, spending, TV, video games, work, etc. to avoid the pain of the loss. We also do things like lament to anyone that will listen about how wrong it was or why it shouldn’t have happened. I’ve had multiple people who, long after the loss event, when asked what they needed said, “I just need it not to have happened!” While I completely understand their pain, the loss did happen and continuing these behaviors will keep them stuck in their grief and they will just become a victim of the loss.
It makes sense that learning how to deal with small every day losses like a change in plans, our kid failing a history test, or a fight with our partner, would give us better skill to deal with the big losses that will ultimately come in life like death, kids going off to college, etc. In order to have a healthy happy life, we have to come to understand that loss is part of the process. If we do not grasp this lesson, then we will be living in fear of the next loss and unable to cope with it when it comes. We will be vulnerable to being hurt at any given moment by the tiniest of circumstances that can completely knock us off course. You can pound your fist on a table, telling everyone that will listen how the loss should not have occurred, but it did happen – and nothing you can ever do will change it.
When you start viewing things that happen in your life as what is ‘supposed to happen’ and look for the lesson you are supposed to glean from it, then you are no longer a victim of life and you will find peace. If you keep living your life as if loss is not supposed to occur, sadly, you will live a tiresome and fearful life that is never your own.
Every bad thing that has happened in my life, big or small, of my own doing or of someone else’s, has put me in a position to mature and grow. While I went into the lessons flailing, denying, and painkilling, I have come out of them wiser, stronger, more mature, and much better able to deal with the losses that occur in life. And I am at peace.
I encourage you to look at how you deal with loss in your life. Do you flail? Or do you deal with it and move on? What is your attitude towards it? Is it fear? Or is it acceptance? Changing your perceptions of grief and loss might just be the key to changing your life!!
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