Today on the blog I wanted to touch on a more serious topic that I’ve not explored before- loss.
Loss is a major emotion and experience that affects us all. Loss can be in the form of grief, when someone close to us has passed away. But there are many types of loss that we deal with more regularly in life.
The loss of a close friendship when someone moves away. The loss of a job that was enjoyed and worked hard for. The loss of freedom in getting married or becoming a parent. The loss of opportunities when life doesn’t work out the way you were planning.
As human beings, we have to learn to cope with loss and accept that inevitably we will experience it in life. To write this article, I have drawn on some of the principles I work through with my grief and loss counselling patients, and some of the ways I’ve learnt to cope with loss in my personal life too.
Accept, but don’t detach
The five stages of grief model has been a helpful way psychologists make sense of people’s experience of loss (read here). Firstly, there is denial (this can’t be happening), then anger, bargaining (if only I could go back in time), then depression and finally acceptance. Acceptance is the final and most important stage in the stages of grief, as it is the point in which you make peace with the loss and find ways to cope with it, so you can continue living your life.
However, some people confuse ‘acceptance’ with ‘detachment’ from the loss. Detachment implies that we are no longer affected by the loss. We block out the painful emotions that it caused, avoid the things/people that remind us of the loss and pretend that everything is okay. Instead, acceptance makes room for all those emotions- the good ones and the unpleasant ones associated with the loss- and allows them to be (read more here).
For example, in the case of losing someone you love, acceptance would mean allowing yourself to cry and feel the sadness of missing that person, while also reminiscing on the good memories and happy times you shared together. Acceptance is a willingness to experience the full capacity of human emotions associated with the loss (more on this here).
Acceptance is a willingness to experience the full capacity of human emotions associated with the loss.
Find ways to honour the loss, and yourself
In order to practice acceptance, there are ways that you can continue the attachment to whatever it is that you lost.
For example, a common way that people cope with the loss of a loved one is by planting something in remembrance of that person. As you nurture that plant to growth, you symbolically continue your relationship with that person, in a redefined, new way. And as you watch the plant blossom and grow, you also experience the feelings of joy and satisfaction again in that relationship.
Similarly, to honour the loss of a friendship, you can write a letter to that person, reminding yourself and them of the time you spent together, or go to one of the places you would go to together.
Although this might sound strange, or like ‘being stuck in the past,’ I believe that it can be therapeutic to do a small gesture that honours the memory of that relationship, whilst also accepting that it isn’t possible for things to go back to the way they were.
Focus on working towards your goals, and hope for the future
Finally, it’s helpful to remember that loss is a transient experience. Some losses can turn into new opportunities, and often the immediate emotional responses of pain and grief can fade and change over time.
A friend of mine experienced a huge loss when, after many years of study and hard work, she was refused entry to medical school. This friend went through all the stages of grief associated with this loss, and stayed in the depression phase for a long time.
Her loss fuelled her motivation to keep trying for her dream career. She found ways to honour the loss, by seeking counselling support and putting her energies into other meaningful work in the medical field.
Eventually, when she had come to terms with the loss, she found another way to practice in the medical field, which proved more satisfying than her original goal.
Although our losses do not always translate into successes, we can be encouraged to continue hoping for the future, and finding inspiration from our losses.
Every one of us is losing something precious to us. Lost opportunities, lost possibilities, feelings we can never get back again. That’s part of what it means to be alive.
Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore
