Blessing Life's Losses by joan guntzelman guntzelman joan

Author:joan guntzelman, guntzelman joan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-08-17T16:00:00+00:00

Reflection Exercises

♦ Relax and breathe easily and slowly. When you feel yourself becoming at ease, begin to call to mind any particular skills or abilities you have used during your life. In what ways have you been competent? Include both work competencies and human-living competencies. Writing a list of your competencies may be useful. What feedback have you received from others about your abilities? Rank your competencies as to their importance to your identity and sense of self-worth. Then ask yourself: What does my ranking tell me about myself? As I ponder my competencies, what feelings are going on inside?

♦ Examine your list of competencies or abilities, and note which of them you no longer use and, specifically, which have become outdated. Which have been the hardest to let go? What emotions or feelings emerge as you think about those you no longer use? Which do you still mourn or feel angry about? What prevents you from letting go?

♦ Focus on the loss of one diminished, lost, discarded, or outmoded skill or ability that continues to provoke hurt, sadness, or regret. Meditate and acknowledge all the ways this competence was beneficial and contributed to your life or the lives of others. Give some thought to the prestige, enjoyment, or rewards that came to you as a result of this ability. Attend to the feelings that emerge. Dialogue with Jesus about your gratitude for the ability, about the gifts it brought to you and others, and about your feelings when it was no longer needed.

♦ As you call to mind the one area in which you have felt the greatest sense of incompetence and loss, give some thought to any dimensions of those skills that you still use. How did that competence contribute to other aspects of your life? Is there anything you continue to hold on to that is asking to be released? anger? sadness? low self-esteem? blame?

♦ Could any of the lost abilities on your list be employed in other settings or in new ways? Let your imagination consider the widest range of possibilities. Ask the Holy Spirit for inspiration. If you have an understanding confidant who might have some ideas, talk with him or her about this.

♦ You may want to ritualize your letting go of a disused or lost competence. If you used to be a mail carrier, but had to retire, you might dispose of the uniform that has been gathering dust in the closet. If you can no longer play tennis, but have rackets cluttering up the house, pass them on to someone just starting. In whatever way you ritualize the letting go, include a prayer of gratitude and release. You might complete each of these sentences to form your prayer:

Gracious God, I thank you for my competence at…

Having this ability was a great gift because…

Letting go of this ability has made me feel…

To move on in life, please, God, grant me

the grace to…

♦ Pray with God’s Word. Let the meaning of the passage assist you in your grieving.

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