Every Challenge Has a Solution. The Answers are Within You.

From the moment we are born, loss begins.

This is the impermanence of our dualistic world of which the Buddhists speak. It is the number one inescapable and often painful fact of life.

Some of My Personal Losses.

As a young child, I lost my innocence through incest by an Uncle. 

My parents later divorced when I was 12.

At 18 I came out as a gay man and lost my Christian community in which I was deeply involved. I lost the relationship I had with them, God, and life as I knew it. Although I was super excited about my future, I also had to grieve what I thought my life would look like.

Starting in my late 20s, I had a successful company lasting 12 years. It went bankrupt a year after giving up control to merge with a venture capitalist.

At 42, my doctor said, “You need to know you are in sudden danger of dying at any moment,” and to “Get my affairs in order.” Turns out I had severe cardiomyopathy. I was put into an ambulance and rushed to the ICU at Cedars Sinai, where I stayed for 31 days.

For 6 months, I became the primary caregiver for my mother, who had stage 4 lung cancer. It was the greatest privilege of my life.

A few years later, my home was in a fire. Fortunately, I got out by climbing over a balcony and jumping to the ground.

In my 50s, I was diagnosed with a brain tumor. To my good fortune, it was benign.

Sprinkled throughout those decades, I had several intense romantic relationships, all of which came to an end. Two of them had died.

At 60, I decided to give away all my possessions. I left my vocation, my community of 24 years, and walked away from everything I knew. All I had was a backpack, a tent, a sleeping bag, hiking boots, a change of clothes, and my cell phone.

The day before I left, I had what felt like a nervous breakdown. What the hell did I do? Did I just sabotage my life, and at 60 no less? I was certain I lost my mind. Then I realized that was the point: to let go of everything I thought I knew and begin again.

It was the most exhilarating and terrifying thing I had ever done. This monastic spiritual sojourn lasted 4 years.

I share this not to be sensational, but to give credence to my own experience with loss and grief as a catalyst for healing through spiritual growth, personal development, and inner peace.

Here’s some of what I’ve learned.

I am not a victim. Life happens to all of us. Einstein said if we understand the Universe is for us, then who and what can be against us? Everything that is happening, is for our individual growth. Always and in all ways.

Control is an Illusion.

The only thing we have any control over is how we choose to experience what happens in our life. That’s it. The Bottom line. The major takeaway. For more on this read Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl.

Second, the degree to which we accept loss is directly proportional to our inner well-being. I’ve learned the hard way, as have millions, that trying to hold on to anything is the root of all suffering.

As Quincy Jones said in one of my favorite songs, “Everything Must Change.” The young in fact do become the old, which I am fortunate enough to attest to. I had many friends who did not have this privilege.

It is our resistance to change that keeps us stuck in the pain.

Mary Laura Philpont put it another way, “You can’t hold onto anything, even your own face, which makes it awfully insulting that you have to look at it all the time. But maybe that’s the job of our faces, to help us get used to letting go.” The truth of this literally made me laugh out loud, like for real.

Acceptance of what is is not resignation; it is the portal to inner peace.

When we accept what is, we drop resistance, and as our attachment begins to dissolve, along with our stress levels. This allows us to move through the loss without doing a spiritual bypass.

Not only is it okay to grieve, it’s necessary. It’s natural to be sad. It’s healthy to be sad. Like all emotions, feelings of grief and loss are messengers that have come to teach us a greater truth about ourselves.

We are bombarded 24/7 that our value is directly proportional to our vocation, our body, our zip code, our bank account, our possessions, and our intimate relationships.

OK, so look, all these things are neither good nor bad, right nor wrong. WE are the ones who assign their meaning and value.

Through familial, cultural, and societal influences, we are taught to identify our self-worth and feelings of security and safety in all external things, which are compounded by capitalism.

This is a setup for failure. 

Every. Single. Time.

Absolutely nothing, is permanent. 

The nature of all life is to evolve.  To heal and grow intellectually and physically, we need to grow spiritually. We must do our best to become curious and allow loss to inform and transform us.

Loss has the potential to help us become more empathetic, compassionate, grateful, and loving humans; if we let it.

It’s important to remember that every one of us experiences loss differently, as no two people are the same. There is nothing to fix here. No one is broken.  We are simply experiencing our humanity and our spirituality simultaneously.

Invaluable Lessons I’ve Learned

The beauty, joy, and love held in our memories will eventually rise up and transform our pain and loss into a new awareness. We will come to know that anything that mattered was not lost after all. 

Like the caterpillar, nothing has died; it has simply transformed into something new, something beautiful.

In this powerful awareness, 

I’ve discovered a peace that goes far beyond my human understanding. My Soul now knows how to rest in a greater truth.

To quote the Course in Miracles; Nothing Real can be threatened, nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the peace of God.