Loss and change, while difficult, can be an opportunity for awakening and going deeper into the true nature of our being.

Even though in the moments when we are experiencing loss, and we would never have wanted that experience, at some later time there is often the realization that you have grown and gone deeper into your essence. So, loss and change are always an opportunity for growth.

We all experience change and loss, whether it’s the loss of a friendship, relationship, the death of a loved one, loss of health, or possessions.  It can help to acknowledge and make peace with the impermanence of life here on earth and the fact that everything is always changing. In doing so we can also begin to live more fully.

At first this may not be easy, because we often want to distract ourselves and not feel the deep feelings of grief or anger or fear, that may accompany loss and change.

This topic is particularly up for many people right now in the face of the pandemic, deepening social and political divides as well as climate change, to name a few. 

Begin to look into your own life and see how you are relating to change in your life. While change can be a portal for awakening and being more present in each moment, it can also bring up for many, the wanting to avoid deep feelings and distracting through addictive behaviors as well. Whatever you are experiencing, can you bring some compassion to your experience? We haven’t been taught as a society how to be with loss and change in a way that brings the most growth and benefit. We’ve been conditioned more to numb and distract ourselves from experiences we don’t like.

Be curious about the mental constructs you have around loss and impermanence that perpetuate more suffering in your life. On some level we can choose to resist what is happening

or we can begin to embrace life as it is with all its challenges as well as change and loss and grief as part of the play of the whole of life. Loss and gain are always happening, seasons are always changing. Part of the challenge of loss and change is that we feel that our identities are being threatened. Who am I if now if that person isn’t in my life? If my mother or father died, or my partner left me, or I lost my job? It’s like we’re grieving over the loss of our own identity or a small death of oneself. But if we drop deeply enough into ourselves we can experience the vastness or spaciousness that allows everything to be here as it is in each moment, the bliss the pain, the joy and the grief.

If you are going through a difficult change or loss right now, you might begin to ask yourself, what am I unwilling to feel right now? How can I compassionately hold space for what is arising in me and make peace with what I’m feeling?

And while resistance is a natural response to what we don’t like, beginning to open to acceptance and peace with what is happening, can over time be more fulfilling and healing than being at odds with life in all its myriad of changes.