Loss and change can be horrible. It can be traumatic and it can be soul-crushing. Think of the greatest loss you could experience in your world. The permanent painful loss. Now step back from that moment because thus the laws and change I can’t address and I wouldn’t try.
However, a wet finger to the wind says that the majority of our losses, the ones we have on a day-to-day basis are not in this catastrophic category. They sting and make no doubt about it they fall on a spectrum. Some are little things and others are much larger. It’s difficult to take them in, categorize them, to easily put them up on the shelf, even order to sort them.
Smaller Losses
But these smaller losses are change. Their often unexpected and loss and change are a package deal. You can’t have one without the other. They are a set. It’s like when you talk to the salesperson in the store and you say I would just like this and the response is sorry can’t break the set-up. It has to be sold together.
The fruit farmers prune their trees. The goal is to enhance the amount of sunlight that the fruit receives. To create space for the large fruit and a cutaway dead or unproductive wood. To the untrained eye, it doesn’t make much sense. More limbs will it equal more opportunity to grow fruit, that would be a logical assumption.
But in this example, it’s not true. The resulting fruit is small, it doesn’t sell at the market well. And usually, the fruit is distorted because it doesn’t have room to grow.
Pruning Is Healthy
The tree becomes more robust, the fruit larger, it colors better, and it fetches a higher price at the market. Loss can be traumatic. Most loss is just a string. But it’s that opportunity for change. Simply put loss and change go hand-in-glove.
A way to shape loss as an opportunity for change. Not a random laissez-faire approach to the change, to let the chips fall where they may. but just like the farmer and the tree to have thoughtful change towards a goal. Thoughtful action based on loss makes for a greater experience.
Easier Said
That’s easier said than done absolutely. It’s a challenge no question. But one of perspective and framing and to step back from a loss one that stings. To take a look at it as an opportunity for change is well worth the undertaking.
The Formula Is Small
The formula is simple that stinging loss has occurred step back for a moment. Try to shape it in a way that is going to allow you to move forward. To do exactly what the farmer does. Allow that loss to be a change for growth. As one of my old martial arts instructors used to say we need to prune for growth. Well, there is that opportunity.
This is about far more serious forms of loss: How to Cope with Loss and Pain
Common specialness is wonderful. 3-min podcast on the topic: Common Specialness
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