Because
these kinds of losses tend to crop up more at midlife and beyond, I wanted to share
a few of the strategies I’ve found for coping them. Hopefully they can help you
in your hour, moment, days, weeks, or months of grief or loss.
· #1 – Be grateful. Always
begin with gratitude. Don't expect to be
grateful for the loss right now, but
do be grateful for the love this
person, this critter, this experience, this job, this adventure, this
revelation, this belief in something bigger than yourself graced you with
during its presence in your life. You wouldn’t be distraught about losing this
person, place, or thing if you didn’t love it dearly or believe it in
wholeheartedly at one time. Passion is something to be profoundly grateful for.
· #2 – Don’t just
do something, sit there. Contrary to
popular belief, not everything requires immediate action or can be replaced with
the click of a mouse. Even if online dating allows you to meet someone new and
exciting within hours of ending a relationship, you may want to put yourself in
time out and think about your behavior before foisting your broken heart or bruised
and battered ego on someone else in order to avoid the sting of a facing a
Saturday night alone. (I dare say alone is better than with the toothless wonder who claimed to be ten years younger, employed, and without a prison record.) You may want to wait a few weeks and figure out what kind of
pet fits into your family before heading to the shelter to pick out a new one.
You may want to make sure your offspring loves the school he’s attending half
way across the country before telling him you’re turning his room into your art
studio. You may want to give the gym a try before you schedule liposuction. And
you may want to simply sit with a friend and listen to her fears instead of
overwhelming her with ways that together you can conquer cancer.
· #3 – Feel your
pain. According to Jill Bolte Taylor, a brain scientist who had a stroke and was
able to study her own brain, it takes our bodies ninety seconds to process
hormonal reactions associated with fear, anger, and grief. If we can experience
them without resistance or repeating our version of the infraction over and
over, the emotions will disappear, making peace possible. When the emotions return again, they do so in
ninety-second waves. Ninety seconds seems manageable to me.
Having
said that, feeling your pain requires immense courage to sit in the sacred
silence of deep space long enough for your soul to inform you what it really
wants and needs now. If facing this emptiness seems unbearable, remember the
ninety second rule. If you do not give yourself this gift, you run the risk of acting out of fear or scarcity and mistake the first person, job, opportunity,
or answer that presents itself as the end to your suffering instead recognizing
it as merely a different version of it.
· #4 – Take
extremely good care of yourself. Now might be a good time to get that mani/pedi
or slip away to the beach house your friend offered up, or go to a matinee
instead of a meeting, or luxuriate in a
hot bath. As long as the consequences don’t create further chaos, whatever
indulges your senses and soothes your soul is just what the doctor ordered.
Nap. Eat well. Listen to music. Swim, cycle, or go for a long walk. Read a book
or a blog. Hug a tree. Send yourself some flowers. Let your cat cuddle up next
to you on the couch. Pull those pesky weeds.
Shred some paper. Now is not the
time to deny yourself the pleasure or privilege of being alive. While some
part of you undoubtedly feels dead, you are still here and the world needs your
unique contribution.
· #5 – Connect. While you may think isolation is a good idea,
unless you want friends and family descending upon your household with soup,
sandwiches, Yahtzee, or other diversions, stay in touch with them. There
are so many ways to let people know you are okay. Tweet, text, show up, phone
home. Watch an inspiring video of other people overcoming similar situations.
Read poetry. Help at an animal shelter or nursing home. Go where you are
needed. Despite what has been lost, there is still more love, more kindness,
more amazement to be found. Discover it.
· #6 – Let your art
heal your heart. I realize not
everyone feels the same urge to express themselves as much or as often I as do,
but however you are inclined to express yourself – through writing, drawing,
staining the deck, sculpting, painting, singing, pantomiming, rapping,
rearranging furniture, gardening, grilling, quilting, mowing, organizing your music playlist or making
mixed tapes – do so.
The hidden gift of a significant loss is the energy,
effort, and creative output that results from getting through those grueling
moments when you are jonesing for your lost love, job, pet, or perspective. The most
prolific time for me is that very vulnerable time when I’ve lost something I
once held dear. Writing is my medicine. What’s yours? Cura te ipsum. (I took one semester of Latin at McGill University. Today is the day it pays off.) Physician, heal thyself.
· #7 – Ask for
grace and guidance. I have a Divine
Assistance Team - my artillery of angels, guides, helpers, gods and goddesses -
on psychic speed dial to help with anything from finding a parking space to
finding my life purpose. I could not manage my life without the intervention of
these invisible allies. They are so much funnier, wiser, savvy, sexy, and
sensible than I am, left to my own devices.
I
also have an incredible Earthly Assistance Team of healers, therapists,
artists, poets, musicians, friends, family, canines, frenemies, fellow bloggers
and blog followers, and neighbors that together act as my personal GPS. I don’t
for a minute consider navigating my new reality without them. Gather your peeps
and recruit them into service for the greater good. Theirs and yours.
· #8 – Dare to
love, trust, believe again.
The last time my heart was smashed to smithereens, I went into a love lockdown
along the order of, “Nobody gets in to
see the wizard. Not nobody. Not no way. Not no how.” My heart was
definitely off limits. Then I fell in love. First it was with my dogs. Okay,
every day it's with my dogs. Then it was with a pair of shoes. Ditto for the shoes.
Then I worked my way up to amber waves of grain, red velvet cupcakes, and
waterproof iPods. Finally I fell for Mr. Right, until he recently left, leaving
him Mr. Left, right? Custody of the dogs, shoes, and iPods remains with me.
I
was betrayed or otherwise thrown under the bus enough times at former
workplaces (weren’t we all?) to motivate me to start my own business so as not
to have to deal with institutional insanity. I quickly discovered crazy making is
an inside job. I’ve been at my current job for 5 years now. They work around my
insanity.
There is a great line in the movie, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. The innkeeper is relentlessly positive in
the face of any and all disasters and consoles his guests by saying, “Everything will be okay in the end. If it's not okay,
it's not the end.”
The
way I see it, life is fragile and we are incredibly tender and mystifying
creatures. Hearts are broken and dreams are dashed every day.
Despite our culture’s obsession with
winning, we aren’t all going to go home with the gold. Let’s face it, there will be far
more excellent, impressive, awe-inspiring athletes leaving London without a
gold medal than those who will.
But
for many of us, that isn’t really the point. It’s about participating. It's
about being here. It's about accepting that this loss may be necessary to come
back better, wiser, stronger, and maybe with more humility at another place and time.
No matter how many times we are faced with loss,
the challenge is to open to it, breathe through it, keep the faith, love fearlessly, trust again, and
show up despite our certainty that, if we are fully alive, are hearts will surely break again.
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