A truth we often resist seeing is that the only constant is change, and that every beginning in our lives will also come with an ending. I often feel resistance to loss in my own life, but lately Iāve been practicing penetrating this truth with my presence because I want to understand how we can live fulfilling lives by integrating (not resisting) the reality of loss into our understanding of life.
How do we accept loss and change with a humble and willing heart when it inevitably punctures our lives? I think we innately hold this skill within, whether we feel connected to it or not. We were destined and built for change. As I continually witness the cyclic nature of beginnings and endings in my life as well as the lives of those around me, I find myself in awe of the innate human skill of adaptability: how we endure change after change after change and, even in the presence of our own resistance, we still manage to fold ourselves into the ever-changing shapes that our lives take on.
It has me wondering if we were made for this. Transformation, that is. And dare I say we even crave it on some levelāāthe deeper level of our psyche that understands the law of existence that all things must participate in loss in order to encourage the movement of lifeās cycle of transformation. ā¦In order to propel our own self-evolution. That part of ourselves knows this: itās profoundly worthwhile, and even necessary, to undergo the astounding process of converting pain into beauty and loss into life through our own willpower.
I like to consider that maybe our lives are not made meaningful by continuity of any single thing in our lives, even the bonds between us and what we care for most. Rather, meaning is generated by two things: being fully present in what's alive in our lives right now, and participating in the process of being changed over and over again by the transience of all that we experienceāall of which eventually ends.
Trees gracefully participate in this same cycle. In autumn, thereās a mess of death layered on the earthās floor. But beyond what appears to be, thereās a thorough process of life taking place as a sea of fallen leaves decompose and provide a continued source of nutrients and water for the trees.
Thereās almost always more to see of our experiences than what they initially present, but we have to be willing to see outside the limits of our perception. You see: beyond a singular event of loss is a greater process taking placeāa process of life.
The experiences we have that donāt always make sense, like endings and loss and all it entails, require a deeper look. We tend to get caught in the sense-making, but in doing so we hinder our ability to see the forward progression beyond what initially appears to be so.
Nothing we lose is ever truly gone. It may be withered in the sense that we know itāand sure, if you stop there youāll feel the heaviness of loss. But all things are ultimately recycled into another form of life. Leaves donāt simply disappear after they journey toward the earth. They alter their purpose in an effort to sustain life.
I like to think that this bizarre human experience invites us to do the same: through all the inevitable losses weāll experience, can we alter our purpose and shift our perception over and over again to seek and surrender to the greater purpose of life? Can we find the threads of life that run through even our greatest losses?
