Reframing Loss: A Holistic Way to Navigate Through Change
Wearing the Chamomile Crop Dress in FS Bleached FS Premier Finish Heavyweight Linen while walking around the pastures
A long time ago a close friend told me about a man he knows, an elderly gentleman who went blind during his middle years.
This man told my friend that when his sight finally left, he realized he was truly seeing for the first time. Seeing all the beautiful things that the stimulus of sight distracts us from appreciating. He made it sound as though it was a great gift to finally see a deeper reality.
Wearing the Chamomile Crop Dress in FS Bleached FS Premier Finish Heavyweight Linen while walking around the pastures
I’ve been thinking about this man recently. Earlier this year I made a terrible error. While doing some digital tidying up on my laptop, I managed to delete nearly all of my current and past professional work from the last five years.
With regularity I get emails from people who have spilled coffee on their computers and need files resent. It’s been a learning experience to discover how often that happens. Being familiar with how greatly probable it apparently is to spill one’s caffeinated beverage, I diligently stored all of my work not only on my laptop storage but also in the mysterious clouds floating in the internet sky. I also became more careful with my chai latte placement.
Wearing the Chamomile Crop Dress in FS Bleached FS Premier Finish Heavyweight Linen while walking around the pastures
But there it was. In one fell swoop my coffee stained daymare of inaccessible files had come to life without the help of any spillage. Unless you count the spillage of an over-zealous ambition to organize the filing cabinets of my hard drive. I tried several methods of retrieval, of course. Only a few meager files emerged from the rubble of my destruction.
After discovering The Loss, as I’ve taken to calling it, I walked to a creek in the woods and cried. Then I listened to Chris Stapleton’s Starting Over on repeat while trying to read a book but mostly just crying the rest of the afternoon. All my work was just… gone. It was a major shock.
Wearing the Chamomile Crop Dress in FS Bleached FS Premier Finish Heavyweight Linen while walking around the pastures
An odd feeling started showing up over the next weeks. I realized The Loss felt familiar. It felt like a pivot point, an invitation to close one chapter and start a new and better one.
I had felt this uncomfortable invitation before. Seven years ago I tried with all the might I could muster to ignore it. I wanted to stay where I was, to stay in graduate school. But life is gloriously unpredictable. In a painful situation, I left my science books behind, accepted the invitation to start a new chapter, and moved back home to my parents’ attic. It’s taken a long time to process that. I’m not sure why it all had to happen the way it did. I still don’t like the way it happened. It felt like a big loss. But while some questions linger, I no longer question the goodness of it all. It was good. The difficulty was a shortcut to now. A much better now than I would have had staying where I was.
Wearing the Chamomile Crop Dress in FS Bleached FS Premier Finish Heavyweight Linen while walking around the pastures
So while I’m still wrestling with my new invitation, I trust it. I trust that it will lead me to something better, something more me. It feels as though The Loss is once again acting as a shortcut to something more fulfilling.
In the grand scheme, these two examples of loss in my life are trivial, but they have been instrumental in altering life direction. I’ve started new work in a new field and am finding it more life-giving than I could have imagined.
Wearing the Chamomile Crop Dress in FS Bleached FS Premier Finish Heavyweight Linen while walking around the pastures
I can’t help but wonder if there is a connection between experiences of loss and my friend’s friend who is finally seeing now that he is blind. As the beloved hymn says, “I once was lost but now I’m found, was blind but now I see.” What if some of our heartbreaking losses are actually gracious nudges in helping us to find?
Wearing the Chamomile Crop Dress in FS Bleached FS Premier Finish Heavyweight Linen while walking around the pastures
Do you have a story where a difficult loss has led you to finding something unexpectedly, inexplicably better?
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12 Comments
Elaine Rutledge
I was at the top of my field when I suffered a traumatic brain injury and lost the ability to read, among other skills. Now, I like to tell people that some people have superpowers. Normal people call them ‘disabilaities.’
Jennifer Straw
I do not want this to minimize the greater message of your beautiful post, but I was drinking a chai tea latte as I read it and almost spit it out onto my computer at the mention of the offending beverage in your post! It is now about ten feet away from me AND my computer. Thank you for being willing to share in such an intimate way and probably saving my computer in the bargain!
Nancy Solla
Thank you for sharing this story. Such a loss deserves to be felt and honored.
My family has suffered several serious losses over the last 2 decades; of people, of my husband’s health (multiple medical crises and near-death situations), of security and stability, of our studio pottery business, of our identities, of careers, of my health, of siblings, of parents, of much-beloved dogs. We’ve had a few of these losses fairly recently and they are very fresh. My husband was just in the hospital again (the same one where he was in a coma for 2 months, 13 years ago) and has a new scary diagnosis to add to his list.
This has been my experience, and yours may differ: It can be very difficult not to ask “why did this happen to me?!” and to obsess and feel victimized. Asking what good can come, what lesson has been presented, is useful, when you are finally in a place to ask those questions. But, for me, first the grief must be felt. Raw, painful grief must have its due. I need to honor the loss, pain, grief, fear, and trauma. Once I’ve done some of that work, I can start to think about what’s next. Every loss is different and the process may look a little different. If I skip past the work, as I was taught to do as a child by my family, all of those feelings get buried and they will resurface later. It’s not a fun process but it is a healing process, healing right down to the bone, to the healthy tissue, and then new growth can begin. Crying helps. We release stress hormones, literally, in our tears. Tears are healing. A good hard cry, without speaking or even thinking, just crying, is always a good place for me to start, preferably in the company of a trusted person. Depending on the loss, sometimes a few good hard cries are enough to get me to a place of, “Ok, what can I learn here?” I may cry more in the future, but I’ve healed enough to get started down a new path.
I share this in the hopes that it may help someone. It’s what I wish someone had told me 13 years ago.
Wishing you all “good” grief and healing,
Nancy
Claire Miller
Thank you so much: It helps.
Nancy Solla
I’m glad, Claire. Sometimes it just helps to know that you are not alone.
Susan Baca
My husband passed away seven years ago today it was a huge and painful adjustment. God has watched over me and blessed me in other ways.
Vicki Lang
I lost my husband about the same time. A week before his 57 birthday. His funeral was on his birthday. I know your lost. It’s hard sometimes to go on but you get blessed in other ways to keep going.
Patti Bravard
I have realized looking ‘back’ that I don’t listen well to the will of God for me. He will send me nudges and I tend to want my own way but eventually I end up doing exactly what He wants, after loss, difficulties, etc. It is so difficult in this day and age to just be, silent, listening. There is so much distraction, noise, worry, stress. Loss of something is definitely a way to get our attention getting us to move in a different path. I am sorry you lost your work. I have lost important photos of family, files, etc. as well and I find it makes me look at the here and now, while trying to remember I don’t need all of this stuff I am dragging around with me.
Sally Hanselman
We had to put our sweet doggie, Libby, to sleep yesterday (it was a rainy Monday morning). Thank you for giving me the gift of Chris Stapleton’s song, “Maggie’s Song,” on his Starting Over album, about his dog’s passing. There a lot of similarities in his story, and it made me cry my eyes out, which was a good bath for my soul this morning.
I’m sorry for The Loss. I hope it leads to new roads. For today, I can’t figure out what my Loss will lead to.
Nancy Solla
Sally, I’m so sorry for your loss.
We had to put our beloved dog Georgia to sleep in April and I know I will be grieving for a while. I haven’t listened to Chris Stapleton’s song yet; I’ll have to prepare myself for a good hard cry, it sounds like. I am also waiting to see what my Loss will lead to. She was my constant source of unconditional love through a very difficult time, and now she’s gone.
Wishing you comfort and peace,
Nancy
Sarah Tremaine
HI Sarah,
Indeed, I have found it to be true ( What if some of our heartbreaking losses are actually gracious nudges in helping us to find?) and it is even more loving than that…. Grace/ God/ The Universal/ the Beloved wants us to know our selves in our deepest nature and will knock on our door/ give us life challenges, over and over, to help us awaken… and if we are lucky enough to listen, the doors to Grace will open our hearts and we can live in the flow of life. I count myself among the lucky to have learned this Truth, which has not been without the requisite suffering, resistance, denial, tears, rage… and surrender. Warm gratitude for your story..
Jenni-Hope Kelland
Yes! I got divorced, was devastated and terrified As a single mom of 4 little kids I realized my dream of getting my degree and becoming a Math teacher. It was so much harder than I feared and so worth it.