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Starting Over Again

Sugar Loaf view from Red BeachWhen you lose someone or something of importance to you, life has thrown you a curve ball. A part of you dies with your spouse, your child, your dream, your career, your marriage, your childhood, etc. We not only suffer a loss of someone or something, we often feel we have lost our own identity.

It takes work and energy to grieve, to heal, to recover from the emotional and psychological wounds just as it takes energy to heal from physical wounds. Then it takes energy to start over again – not just continuing with life as usual, but beginning anew.

We suffer many losses throughout our lifetime – most of them small cuts and bruises and with the application of appropriate band aids, we go on as usual. But when the losses have accumulated to avalanche proportion or we have suffered a major hit that leaves huge crater like holes in our hearts, it takes more than just resolve to move forward.

Loss opens the door to change – in fact it literally tears the door down. And no matter how much we want to close that door again so we can go on with life as it used to be, it is now impossible. We can’t stay where we were – and we don’t want to go through the door to a new reality.

Like losses, we experience many transitions in our lifetime. Major ones include entering kindergarten or first grade, leaving home, getting married, becoming parents, etc. Even those transitions that we embrace hold an element of loss within them. Once you have a child, you cannot return to the carefree childless life you had before. Once you are married, your relationship defines your activities and goals. Once you leave home, you cannot return to the security of someone bailing you out if you need it. For some people they never did have that security.

So, even in the normal developmental stages of life, we grieve what we had as we embrace what we enter.

Take the time to grieve.  In the grieving we establish a new balance – a new stability.  Grieving is that “physical therapy” we use for our emotional wounds that help us heal more effectively.

Marlene Anderson

 

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