At some point or another, we’re faced with trying to heal from loss. It may be the loss of a loved one, a marriage, a job, or even our identity. The process of healing from loss stirs up various emotions and can often bring an awareness of beliefs or patterns to the surface. Navigating through these beliefs and patterns, in my opinion, is where we can find opportunities for our personal growth and healing, IF we look closely enough and truly get in touch with our emotions.
When I was growing up, I never experienced much loss that had a major impact on me. Even though I have a huge extended family, I never lived close to them, so I didn’t and still don’t know most of them very well at all. I rarely saw any of my grandparents, and I certainly couldn’t name most of my aunts, uncles, or cousins. If there was a death in the family, it didn’t affect me much, because they were mostly strangers to me. In a bizarre way, I considered myself fortunate.
Beginning in September of 2015, that all changed, and it seems that my life since then has been one loss after another. While they’ve all been very different types of losses, I’ve experienced an immense amount of pain, awareness, acceptance, and healing from each of them. I’m not necessarily where I want to be yet, as the thoughts and emotions are still sometimes very raw, so my healing and growth is ongoing.
Healing from the Loss of Loved Ones
On September 2, 2015, my dad, Bill McRee, passed away. Bill wasn’t my biological father, but he raised me and loved me as if I were his own flesh and blood. We had a unique relationship, as I am the only daughter in the family. My dad said for years that he wanted to legally adopt me, and even though I laughed it off for a while, I asked him in 2013 if he would. I wanted it to be my gift to him, an expression of how much he meant to me and how much I loved him.
When my dad passed away, the grief that I felt was crippling. I vividly recall dropping to my knees, crying and screaming, in my parents’ kitchen. He had always been so supportive and loving, so much more than my biological father. Losing him, without a doubt, had the greatest impact on life on so many levels. His death caused me to re-examine my life, question everything about how I was living, and in many ways, inspired me to start this blog.
Who he was, how he lived his life, and his death taught me so much about love. I learned what unconditional love from a father figure meant. I learned that it’s possible for someone to love themselves and that’s where true happiness comes from. I learned that doing what you’re passionate about and having fun in life are far more fulfilling than anything else.
Some time around February 2017, I was faced with the loss of another loved one when I received a call from one of my cousins. He informed me that my biological father had hanged himself on January 25th.
My father and I did not have a good relationship. In fact, he was the exact opposite of the man I call my dad; however, he was my father, so I had some love for him. I typically only saw him a couple of times a year, but I would always be filled with trepidation about our visits.
My father was an angry alcoholic, and most of my life I was terrified of him. While he never physically abused me, I can’t say the same for what he did to my brother. My father had different sides to him, and I never knew which side I was going to see. One was a stern, dominating man while the other was a jokester and story-teller who always had to be the center of attention.
My father and I had not communicated since 2005. At that time, I finally gathered enough strength to tell him how I felt about our relationship, and his response, although very harsh, really wasn’t shocking. He informed me that he never wanted to speak to me again, and so he didn’t.
It took me many years to work through the pain of that loss, which in all honesty, I never really did. I simply put up a wall and buried my emotions. That wall came crashing down when I received the call about his suicide.
What I learned about his life, who he was, and about his death taught me an immense amount about compassion and forgiveness. Even though he spoke very little about it when he was alive, I knew he had a difficult childhood, one filled with poverty and abuse. After his suicide, one of my uncles painted a much bigger picture for me. He filled in as many details as he could about my family history, and to say it was dark would be an understatement. However, in that darkness, light entered. The light was learning to have compassion for and forgiveness towards a man who struggled his entire life to love and to be loved. The light was understanding that even though I always said I never wanted to be like him, I now know I am, for I too, have battled with an internal struggle to love and be loved. The more compassion and forgiveness I could have for him, the more I could have for myself.
Healing from the Loss of Identity
Up until recently, I spent my entire adult career working in the veterinary field. I’ve always had a love for animals, so it made sense that that was the line of work I did. I thrived in my work because I was able to help living creatures who had no voice and who gave unconditional love to everything around them. They were a mirror image of me and what I was going through most of my life.
I put everything I had into my career. I started out on the ground level and worked my way up into teaching, managing, and even starting my own consulting business. I worked long hours, holidays, nights, you name it. I missed family events, celebrations, and even a family funeral.
Like my father, I used work to escape everything else in my life. As long as I focused on work, I could hide from my shadow side. I would stay so busy with my “paid” work that I didn’t have to do any of my internal work. What I discovered from that is that who I had become was tied to the work I did and not who I was in my soul. In fact, I had no idea who I was anymore. The problem with that approach is that a person can only carry out that charade for so long before something changes, before something breaks.
When I lost the identity attached to my work, I realized that the only true way to live was to connect with what had been stirring in my soul for so many years. I wasn’t a label or a title. I was and am a person who has always had love for other people and who has wanted to help others. I am someone who has always felt a connection to some sort of higher power, and I’m a person who feels like my purpose is to serve others. I am a beautiful source of energy who wants to somehow make the world a better place. I’m a product of a Higher Power, of Source Energy, of God. I am light and love.
Healing from the Loss of Marriage
I think it’s safe to say that we don’t enter into a marriage thinking or hoping it will fail. Unfortunately, sometimes they don’t work out. In February of this year, my second husband and I decided to end our marriage. The death of our marriage was years in the making and something we both saw coming but never talked about until Valentine’s Day.
He wanted to leave for about a week to go on his self-exploration journey and when he returned three weeks later, he was the one who had the courage to ask the big question. Was I happy? That one question opened the door to a new life for the both of us. We sat and talked calmly for hours about how neither of us had been happy for some time. We both shared what we thought contributed to the breakdown of our marriage; some things we agreed upon and some things we didn’t. We never yelled, but we certainly cried a lot. In the end, we both felt like a divorce was the only option.
After he left and I had a lot of time to myself, I started to do some digging. That’s when I discovered that there was more to the divorce than I first thought. There was another woman.
At first, I was full of rage, disgust, anger, you name it. I was disgusted with the both of them, her for intruding on our marriage and him for lying to me and hiding things from me. In my mind, I questioned why he made so much effort to be with her and practically no effort to repair our marriage. I’m not sure when it happened, but I finally decided that I really needed to examine how our marriage had gotten to that point and how I contributed to the failure of it. It no longer mattered what his role in it was; I could only look at my role.
The ending of our marriage provided me with numerous lessons about myself and other people. I learned that I will always say what I feel and not fear the other person’s reaction because I can’t control that. I learned how important boundaries are and that if something isn’t acceptable, I don’t have to tolerate it. I learned that if I ever have another serious relationship again, it’s important for me to take time to cut loose and have fun with that person. I learned that a lack of communication and intimacy can obliterate a union. I learned that sometimes we never receive apologies and that’s ok. Most importantly, I learned that setting someone free and wanting nothing more than for them to be happy is an incredible gift.
Healing from Loss – Overall Lessons
The degree of personal growth we experience through loss is in direct proportion to the degree of love or pain we experienced with that person or situation.
Healing from loss takes time and can be painful, and it’s a process that often times requires introspective work.
Be one with your emotions instead of trying to bury them in order to just “move on”. Having an emotional experience is part of the human journey.
Nothing is permanent – people, relationships, situations, emotions. Enjoy each wonderful moment as it happens and learn to live in the now. Realize that any negative thought or emotion you have is equally fleeting and shall pass.
It is not uncommon to possess the same qualities that we don’t like in another person. If you have strong negative emotions towards someone else, try to determine why and see if you are actually a reflection of them. This can provide tremendous insight into areas for self-improvement.
Sometimes what we want and what we actually need are completely different. We may want a certain relationship to last through our lifetime, but maybe the purpose of that other person is to teach us some sort of lesson about ourselves and to then move on. That lesson can be a far greater gift than the actual relationship.
Forgiveness and compassion for ourselves and others are two of the most impactful steps we can take towards healing from loss. https://positivepsychology.com/why-is-forgiveness-important/. They are the basic tenets for love.
What loss have you experienced? What did you do to heal from it? Are there other suggestions you have?
Until next time, I hope you all find a way to heal from loss and to begin Living Differently and Better.
