Travelling through loss to find a way to live life fully

The most common phrase of the last week or so has been “Happy New Year.” 
While this is usually thrown out as an innocent, simple, and friendly phrase, it can also carry a weight of expectation that feels unachievable.

Much of the popular culture that surrounds us values happiness, claiming that a state of constant happiness should be our goal, and we often have this image in our minds of a perfect year, a perfectly happy year – with no pain, loss or sadness, no conflict or anger. However, happiness is just one of many, transient, emotions that we can expect to experience this year, and if we strive to experience just one of these, we will, inevitably, be disappointed. 

So, as we embark on this year, a new chapter ahead of us, of course, let’s allow ourselves to celebrate our successes and achievements, and also, let’s acknowledge and grieve the losses we may have experienced, and think about opportunities that may arise in which we can do things differently or put things right.

Losses can include the ending of a relationship, changing your identity in some way, the death of a pet, the loss of a dream, infertility, moving house, changing schools, or leaving a job. Each loss we experience – all perhaps equally painful the first time – needs to be processed the same way as any bereavement. Whatever the loss, the process is the same. And the older we get, the more losses there are. Each time, processing these losses, helps us focus more on life.

Throughout my own life, from a very young age, I have experienced and been exposed to losses through death – friends, elderly relatives, infants and babies. Many think it is important to protect our young people from the impact of such big losses, but I wonder if by doing this, we may be depriving them of the chance to sit with us as we grieve, to show them the different ways that it is possible to grieve, to support them as they find their own ways, and to be with them as they come out the other side, with a trusted adult for support, ready to laugh and be joyful again. 

And it may be that, if you feel you struggle with loss or grief, not quite knowing what to do with the feelings, or how to support yourself, or how to ask for support, or if you struggle with a sense of feeling stuck, perhaps you were among the children that did not learn how to grieve.

When grief is allowed to flow and be fully experienced, it is not something to be feared or avoided, it doesn’t stop life in its tracks – rather, there is a pause, a time for reflection and feeling, a time for processing, a kind of sad beauty in the remembering. And then, after the pause, life begins more fully, in earnest, as the sun shines more brightly after a storm. 

Endings of all kinds are so important in learning how to fully live, and how to appreciate life and being alive. By looking back and acknowledging both sides of the coin – the gifts and the losses – we find a way to truly live. So, I leave you with this thought – truly processing our losses is how we find life.