We all experience loss in our life.
Whether it is loss of a loved one, a career, or a home.
The hard part is not usually the loss itself.
It is the story we make from the loss.
For we often tell ourselves that loss is permanent.
And sometimes it is.
Or the loss is our fault.
So there is guilt from the loss.
Perhaps even we wanted it to happen.
Being human, that might even be true.
So what if those stories are true?
What does it matter how we felt, what we did or didn’t do?
We probably didn’t make the loss happen.
Even if we played some small part, we were not the ones who took the life, took the job, or took the home from us.
Certainly there is grief from the loss.
Of course, we feel the pain of the loss.
Yet we only suffer from the loss because f the stories we make up inside our minds.
As if is actually is our fault.
How could that be?
Can we control all the factor in the world that brought every little piece of the puzzle together to make it happen?
Not likely.
Could we have said something or did something different?
Yes, we could have.
Would it have made a difference?
We don’t know, nor will we ever be able to know.
Maybe it would have, maybe not.
In the end it does not matter.
Because we could not have done anything different.
If we could have, we would have.
We did not have the foresight to see the implications of our actions or non-actions.
Perhaps if we were supposed to, we would have been able to.
Yet we didn’t.
And all the guilt and all the shame will never change that fact.
It has happened.
Because it has happened, it is now in the past and can we can not change it.
So what can we do? How can we move forward?
To honor the loss.
And feel the grief.
To allow ourselves to feel our feelings without making a story about it.
Who are we to judge ourselves in that manner?
Let’s let life decide about our part in the loss and do the best we can to move forward.
The loss is real and it did happen.
What is important is how we show up in the future, not the past.
So where are you letting a loss how you back from being the best you can be?
~ Sam Liebowitz, The Conscious Consultant
