Opportunities and Gifts From Great Losses

Loss is in the oculus of the beholder. Some losings are considered gigantic. Others are expected alterations to the position quo. More important, the same loss can be viewed quite differently by two people. Yet, all of us endure what we see to be great losses.

Regardless of the manner we see a specific loss in our lives, it can supply the scene for learning more than about ourselves and the human race in which we live. We seldom openly acknowledge that large losses, like the decease of a loved one, alteration us. Nevertheless, loss causes us to see the human race in a more than realistic way, to cognize that sorrow and unhappiness is a reality, and come up to recognize that that alteration is continuous.

But make we really take advantage of the lessons that loss teaches, the Negro spiritual and psychological development that is always available in transformation? As the hurting of your heartache gets to withdraw be unfastened to possible benefits. Here is what many have got learned that mightiness aid us better accept what we cannot control, and cut down self-imposed suffering.

1. The importance of interpersonal relationships. It is so easy to overlook how of import our interpersonal human relationships are until we are down, and friends and neighbours measure up to assist in a clip of need. We are often reminded that human relationships with others are critical to wellness and well-being; they are at the core of what do life joyful. The message is: foster your human relationships and give and accept support.

2. The importance of Negro spiritual life. Death and other great losings always do us to believe large inquiries like Why am I here? and Why did this happen? and How makes this tantrum into any plan? The hunt for significance in loss put bare our Negro spiritual side. We recognize that it is our deep interior life that is so of import in managing the hard bends in life. Many go aware of the strength, through faith, that tin be establish in a powerfulness greater than the self.

3. The importance of the small things taken for granted. The short walkings by the seashore, the odor of coffee, the sounds of nature, the sun and the stars often look more than gratifying and sometimes needed after great losses. We often are reminded of how inspiring and gratifying the simple things in life can be. The message: focusing on what you still possess to equilibrate your sorrow.

4. The hunt for meaning. Why make we have got to suffer? How can we suit our loss into some framework of understanding? Why did this loss happen at this time? Answering these inquiries is not easy, and sometimes replies cannot be found. More often meaning is found, and a new version of life is formed. Often old beliefs are changed and new beliefs adopted about what is really important.

5. The demand for silence and solitude. Being surrounded by many support people for long hours do cherished silence and purdah a welcome gift for many at the end of the day. It often goes a clip for replenishing energy, and thought about new precedences and ways that tin be followed in relearning a human race that have dramatically changed because of our loss. We can especially believe about the fact that life is so much more than than the civilization statuses us to believe it is.

6. The appraisal of our dependance on the individual or physical object of loss. Not infrequently, loss have us recognize that we had lost our personal identity as a individual by depending too much on the loved one or physical object of loss. Now we have got to repossess what we gave away at a hard time. Rebuilding personal identity and taking on new duties and functions is a major challenge that have to be met.

In summary, perhaps one ground we confront changeless alteration is to larn from and turn through our losses, to happen out who we really are, and not dwell on the surface but at a deeper level. Could it be that through agony we larn how great and resilient the interior ego is, that we have got been life a less than full life, and that we are more than than we realize?

Suffering through loss often raises our degree of consciousness to high we never new existed. It can take us to developing our ultimate potentiality as an individual, and in our ability to assist others. The challenge is to be unfastened to learning from all of the experiences life offers, even the 1s we would rather go through us by. The pick is clear: larn or endure without growing.

An Extraordinary Experience That Eased the Burden of Grief

For over 25 old age I have got been studying the personal effects of the Extraordinary Experiences (EEs) of the bereaved. These events are spontaneous, not invoked, and those who experience them are convinced they come up from an outside source—their asleep loved one or a Supreme Being.

There are numerous positive personal effects from these encounters, not the least of which is the strong belief by the griever that consciousness lasts bodily decease and the loved one lives on. Following is an unusual electrical engineering that had three positive personal effects on the receiver in improver to the two just mentioned.

The receiver of this experience was a devoted married woman and helped her hubby through many calendar months of coping with prostate gland cancer. As she said, "Being present when he was dying was an incredibly profound experience that changed my life. However, I knew his clip was very short, and he would not decease in my presence, as he wanted to save me the sadness. He passed away shortly after I went place that last night."

In her ain words, here is her Extraordinary Experience.

"My electrical engineering occurred approximately 30 hours after Peter's death. I awakened around 7:00
a.m. and saw my 'Happy Birthday' balloon in my bedroom. He had ordered flowers
and the balloon for my birthday two hebdomads earlier. He hadn't gotten me a balloon for
old age but this 1 turned out to be significant. During the four years he'd been in home
hospice care, it hovered around the ceiling in the room where we spent our clip talking
and watching telecasting ('hanging out' he called it). This balloon had never left that
room before, and would have got had to travel up and down through two doors to acquire to
the bedroom—so Iodine knew it had to go on on its own.

When I saw the balloon that morning, I immediately knew it was a message from him that he had arrived at his destination, and wanted to give thanks me for taking attention of him. I went down a short hallway to our presence door to acquire the newspaper, and when I came back the balloon was in his bathroom. He had told me earlier that since his shower was better than mine, I should utilize his bathroom after he was gone. I felt the balloon was reminding me of that, so I took my shower there immediately.

The residual of the morning time the balloon would be in whatever room I was in, although I never really saw it move. I would just look up and see it with me. This lasted for a few hours, then it was over. The balloon lost all its air and to this twenty-four hours rests on a shelf by a jadestone works in my sunroom. I felt this episode was a minute of charming and joyousness in the thick of my new and overpowering sadness."

This experience was a major factor in how Marilyn was able to get by with her great loss. I asked her what was most helpful about it for her. She said, "The timing of the experience set the tone of voice for my bereaved process: Happy mental images (balloon, etc.) immediately linked to the sad 1s (Peter's dying moments). Also, the brush reassured me that his agony was over. Finally, the inside information of this electrical engineering seemed designed by Simon Peter to be a very personal and alone message for me."

These three points are critical to understand. Setting the tone of voice for grieving agency knowing that all is well, though sad, and all is not lost. Reassurance is an of import factor in accepting her loss (a major undertaking of mourning) knowing that his hurting is over. And finally, realizing the personal significance of the message adds to reassurance and her belief that love lives on.

Experiences like Marilyn's have got happened to billions of people in a assortment of different ways from sensing the presence of the asleep or having a vision to hearing the loved one's voice or experiencing a trial dream. The general populace is not aware of the frequence of these contacts or the grade of aid they supply to the bereaved. They stay another illustration of the enigma of life.

How Your Life Can Have Meaning after the Death of a Loved One

How can you find meaning in life now that your loved one has died? How can existence possibly have any purpose? It is common to feel that life has ended for you. When someone we love is no longer physically present, we are often haunted by despair, emptiness, and the lack of purpose.

Even though grief therapists know this is a common yet temporary experience, it is not common and temporary as far as you are concerned. It is too real and deeply painful to consider what the death of your loved one means.

1. The first step to take is at some point in your mourning is to decide that you will become restoration oriented. I cannot tell you when that will occur; only you can make the call. In short, you must form the intention of reinvesting in life despite all of the feelings inside that say, no way. You may not be able to do it today. Later, a little at a time, will do. However, it is clear that a loss orientation always leads to stagnation and increased unhappiness.

One of the secrets of human behavior is to discover that you can act your way into new beliefs and assumptions about life. Yes, act. You don't necessary have to start with the positive mental attitude everyone talks about. This happens in someone's life every day. What they never thought could happen within, suddenly changes due to their persistent make believe behavior.

Act as you wish to be is an ages old recipe for adapting to change. Hard work? Yes. Yet it always works, if you do one thing: keep acting "as if." This means acting as if you are where you want to be.

2. Embrace that which is unfamiliar is the second step. It is the familiar and predictable which gives us a secure feeling. The loss of your loved one forces you to face a new world, a new life, devoid of the presence of the person who added so much meaning to existence. You will have to face the unfamiliar, learn new skills, and reach out—or live a much contracted existence. That is a given. But you can approach the task with special motivation to look for ways to reinvest your emotional energy.

Here is a taste of what others have done. Take short or long trips to places you have never been. They can be places near your home or out of the country. Start sampling foods from other cultures. Some you can purchase in your local super market. Others can be tried in restaurants. Try a sport or exercise you have never done before. It could be Yoga, Tai Chi, boating, breathing exercises, or golf as starters. Never stop learning. There are thousands of things we have never done.

3. In welcoming the unfamiliar, don't be over-controlling. Let whatever you discover in your attempts to embrace the unexplored to play out. Don't judge too soon whether it's good or not so good for you. See what it fully offers by giving it much time and space to play its role in your daily life. Consider the satisfaction it brings and the interpersonal relationships it generates in your evaluation to make it a part of your new life or to abandon it. Let these events unfold to create a multiplicity of possibilities and wonder for your greater good. Study the possibilities carefully.

4. At root, you are searching for meaning in the death of your loved one and in a life without him/her. Realize how vastly important meaning is. It is the flywheel of life around which everything is organized; you are a universe of meanings and emotions. It builds and tears down, brings sorrow or joy, throws you into the past or causes you to become interconnected in a web of relationships. Changes in meaning can bring changes in your ability to cope; even your body will respond in healthier ways.

We act out and believe what is meaningful and makes sense. Meaning will change your life for good or for the worst—all on the way you choose to perceive an event. The miracle of it is that you can find new meaning for your life, let go of the old, and cooperate with the massive changes imposed by loss. For it is meaning that will keep you connected to your loved one, and learning to love in separation.

Don't forget, all of the above works if: you act as you wish to be, seek and accept the unfamiliar, and refuse to be controlling as you allow the new to play out. This will facilitate making a diligent search in your thought life for other meanings in the death of your loved one and in your life. What other meanings can you find?

Does the Work of Grief Ever Really End?

Are you wondering if the pain will ever cease, if the emptiness will ever leave? Will life ever have meaning again? You may not think so now, but the answer to all three questions is an unqualified yes. And there are millions of people who can vouch for that fact.

But that does not mean you will be your old self once again. Nor does it imply that you will be somehow totally free from the anxiety of your loss experience. There are a constellation of variables that determine the intensity and the length of grief. They range from the type of death, number of secondary losses, and degree of emotional investment in the deceased to your coping behaviors, health, social support system, and expectations, to name just a few.

What do we know about the length and intensity of grief work, that process we have to go
through to adapt to all of the changes imposed by the death of a loved one? Here is what will help you to arrive at your own answer to that question.

1. The intense feelings certainly lessen over time. That will be obvious. However, to put a time limit on how long they last is to dismiss one incontrovertible fact about grief—it is a highly individual process. So that great pain and emptiness can last days or weeks, depending on your individual variables.

2. You will also experience what may be interpreted as an ending to your grief, or at least a feeling that you are doing quite well—only to find yourself suddenly thrust right back to where you were a few weeks ago. This can be a very discouraging, albeit normal, occurrence. Some event may unfold where normally your loved one would have been with you, and you are brutally reminded of his/her absence.

What is often called the "year of the firsts" may include a number of these episodes. There is nothing wrong with feeling anxiety, anger, or a host of other emotions when this happens. It is not only normal, it is to be expected.

3. It is also quite possible that years later, when you have adapted to the physical absence of your loved one, a wedding, birth, graduation, or anniversary may bring a revisit of sadness or the need to cry and express emotions. Don't hold back on these feelings. They are a common result of memories and a part of life.

4. As said previously, grief work is a process of adaptation, or as many believe, a process of healing. That healing can go on for years with stops and starts that bring new awareness and views of life. In fact, there are a number of people who believe that healing never ends. (I have heard some say, once you grieve, you grieve forever.)

Perhaps we begin our healing attempts with our first major loss. Then with subsequent losses, we have to continue the healing process, learning as we go. Maybe adapting to change—or healing—is an ongoing or forever process. If it is, we need not make it an object of anxiety and give it unnecessary power to distract us from enjoying life.

So, does the work of grief ever end? The answer, of course, depends on your individual beliefs and interpretations. For some, grief work ostensibly ends at a point in time. For others, it is a matter of being revisited by grief. Whatever your belief, you can be sure each of us possess the inherent ability to deal with our losses. And, with a little help from our friends, make it through those early days of confusion and change.

Where it goes from there depends on our choices.