Loss Archives

October 21, 2020December 25, 2020

Victim Times Three

Victim times three. The title sounds like rejection or oddly an acceptance of what is happening, but in a strange and odd way. “This is not happening,” or I am a victim of a certain circumstance is not an attractive look.

Business Destroyed

Recently my karate dojo got flooded. The dojo was destroyed. The unit is going to be stripped to the walls. And finding contractors in this environment is difficult. I’m not teaching in my dojo, not for some time.

Upset when I got the call? No, not at all. It’s not what happened to me, it is life and life always is happening. Life does what it does, pipes fail in this instance. Other things have happened to you I’m sure. Some of those things, well you can measure smaller and some I’m sure you could measure much larger. In seeing life happening and not happening to us we take away the victimhood.

Victimhood Is Not Honorable

Victimhood is popular but it’s weak, it is not virtuous and it is narcissistic. Let me say that again. Victimhood is weak, it lacks virtue and it is narcissistic. It’s weak because it has a ceiling, it only goes so far, and then it limits out. It reaches the top and it doesn’t allow the true potential that a person possesses to rise to blossom to bloom.

Victimhood, it lacks a virtue is not good, that lack of virtue is a result of poor standards personal and public. You see there incomplete. Thirdly victimhood is narcissistic and it’s the weakest form of narcissism. It doesn’t define you by your good looks or your status. Victimhood defines you by your self identified incompleteness. It says that only something other than yourself can repair you. A victim is in denial of who they should be.

The Taste Is Bitter

As for the flood of the dojo? Did I want to be upset when I got the phone call? Yes, I wanted to for about one hot second, then I saw it as victimhood and I spat it out, the taste is bitter. It was a good day, a win, and I trust you will find those wins in your life. Where you’re able to say, “That victimhood, no that’s not happening,” because life is not happening to us, it’s happening.

How to Stop Being a Victim and Start Creating Your Life from tiny buddha

Here is a podcast that offer concrete action you can take immediately to shift away from victimhood: What Happens

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KRIS WILDER

Kris Wilder is a martial artist based in Seattle Washington. He has authored many martial art books, including the classic, The Way of Kata. Making no apologies for his obsession of Football he can be found telling any who will listen about the nuances of the Canadian Football League.

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April 15, 2020October 17, 2020

Loss and Change

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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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November 27, 2019February 21, 2020