Coping with loss

As humans we tend to accumulate and stock things. Well, not only humans… go and check your pet’s place, probably you will find things there too!

But as humans, there is something extra – we feel the loss. And we feel it pretty hard, sometimes for years. Besides, the thing we accumulate is often another person…

Coping with loss is more frequent than it should be and we are normally bad in doing that. I am saying here should be not much because we shouldn’t lose things or relationships – we will lose, that is for sure; but we shouldn’t feel it that bad.

An ad I saw a few years ago showed two young girls being taken to a foster home. It was an emergency situation and they were taken in the middle of the night in their pajamas and nothing else. The youngest struggled the most; part of her sleeping ritual was to hug her stuffed toy and that night, she could not sleep without it. Next day, the family took her to a place where she easily and happily got a new toy, just like the one she had!

Not a Toy Story happy end I know, but it shows people often lose something, then they go over the natural mourning and just move on with life, even when it is such an emotional item. The key point here is the emotional part: the kid was able to move beyond her grief because the foster family was supporting her.

So, there is an easy way to cope the loss of objects: identify the emotional support it was giving you and find it at some other place. Done!

Now, what about people? The short video was not long enough to show the consequences of the children’s parents’ absence in their lives and how they were able to cope with that type of loss.

A friend of mine, Dr. Roger Cole, once spoke in an interview after a tragic accident in Bogota that we need to have a time for mourning. That is the first step; we have to accept the loss in our hearts and understand they will never come back.

After that, it is good to create a memorial for those people in heart and mind, reminding you the great gift they were by being present in your life. It will help you to wrap up that relationship, forgive whatever has to be forgiven, keep whatever has to be kept and just say goodbye.

The last part that helps to cope with losses when referred to people is to visit the memorial from time to time, not out of a sense of nostalgia, but to learn, to smile and laugh again with those people, whose memories live in you.

Hope you can try it next time a person walks away from your life. Take care!