How do people overcome the horrible losses that occur every day of the year? What is the difference between those who finally accept their great loss and try to move forward in life and those who live in the past? How can one find any meaning, when his vision of life and reality itself has been completely shattered?
In my own family, I have a daughter who died from sudden infant death syndrome, a brother from prostate cancer, and a younger sister from anorexia nervosa. How do we handle pain and the question of why? Like millions before us, we basically draw on beliefs and attitudes toward life, and some new ones that emerged from the struggle to understand and find meaning. From here flow all the coping strategies to alleviate pain.
Over the past 25 years, I have also been with many grieving people, as a counselor and friend, and have watched them struggle to adjust to life without their loved ones. Many were dealing with unexpected deaths of all kinds, including suicide.
How were beliefs and attitudes transferred to really cope with pain and change? What do all known possible coping responses boil down to? Simply this: what you choose to think (believe) determines how you behave in the face of loss. So the most reliable coping response you can develop is: the ability to choose thoughts that help you physically and emotionally. The keywords are: choose thoughts.
Attitude is behind all achievements, including overcoming our great losses. This does not mean that tumultuous feelings of emptiness, helplessness, hopelessness, deep pain, abandonment, or fear will magically disappear, if you choose to take control. But it will guarantee that all unnecessary suffering will be eliminated through your healing journey.
You’ve probably heard it a million times, but it holds true for all problem solving: attitude is everything; it affects every cell in your body and its arrangement at any given time (this is something you need to look at carefully). The difficulty with the cliché attitude is that it is repeated so frequently and is so unscientific that we dismiss it as irrelevant. Then we forgot, a very damaging blow.
However, thoughts determine feelings and actions. I have seen it happen often with the bereaved: when the bereaved thinks differently about their loss and what to do, the course of mourning moves toward healing. But it is not an easy job.
What thoughts seem to help? Here are four examples: (1) Loss and change are inevitable and universal (I am not being punished). (2) Life is unfair sometimes. (3) The cure is up to me. (4) A Zen proverb: “Jump and the net will appear.” Of course, there are many others. The point is: we increase our pain or help ourselves, one thought at a time.
What thoughts do you often have to dismiss? Here are two important things. First, change your thinking from “Why did this happen?” to “What can I do?” And secondly, “I will never be happy again” or “I will learn to live with this loss.” Then become aware of your harmful thoughts and commit to changing them. Start with the single thought that hurts you the most. It will elevate you to a higher level of consciousness.
The earlier in life we learn that thoughts are directly linked to physical feelings and ultimately how we deal with all that life has to offer, the better we are equipped to deal with inevitable change. Again, there is no immunity to pain. Everybody has to face it.
Knowing that you control pain and that you can think of solutions and directions to move is the most powerful answer you can muster. The key is to realize that you can only heal through your efforts, changing your thoughts first.
Now here’s the catch. Social scientists tell us that we can learn to be more optimistic (renowned psychiatrist Viktor Frankl called it “tragic optimism”) by training ourselves repeatedly to deal with negativity, suffering, and massive changes.
Find the correct affirmations (thoughts) that suit us and keep running them through our minds. Combine this with acting the way we want to be. Actions change attitudes. Let the pain hurt you; let it transform you. This is all hard work, but you can do it. And there is good reason to do so, as losses and changes keep coming and going as time goes on.
Force yourself to try to change the way you think about your loss. Let the change transform you. Stay with that. Hang out with other people who have strong perspectives. Avoid toxic thinkers, especially when you’re in mourning.
I’m sure you are thinking that all of the above is too simple to be useful. It sounds like this. But it takes a lot of commitment to choose thoughts for your emotional and physical stability, and the courage to get back up after a bad day. In the long run, the results will surprise you. You will achieve a healthier adjustment to the loss and you will manage the pain, because everything begins and ends with what you choose to think.