Living Forward After Loss by Kathleen Ho

Author:Kathleen Ho [Ho, Kathleen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781532083501
Publisher: iUniverse
Published: 2020-02-06T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter

5

How to Move from

Mourning to Joy

Mostly it is loss which teaches us about the worth of things.

—Arthur Schopenhauer25

You may still feel overwhelmed and confused and not know how to get back to a healthy life after a painful loss. You keep telling yourself that you will stand up on your own feet again. However, you do not know where or how to start. You still feel you are lost. It is awful to have the feeling of being lost in life. Until this moment—a year and a half since the day David left me alone in this world—this terrible feeling still bothers me. I used to be a strong, active, and happy woman when I was with David. His love lifted me, and together, we chased after our dream. Now I have to live life without him. I feel incomplete and lost; I have nobody to back me up and to lean on. I know I have to get up to rebuild my new life. I know I have to close the chapter with my late David. However, it is excruciating to think about the future without him. I wrote this section with tears streaming down my face.

It is challenging to start a new chapter of our life after a tremendous loss, right? Therefore, do not feel bad if you are overwhelmed. If you think you need to cry over it, please do so. Our sad tears allow us to discharge our sadness, anger, and sorrow. By permitting ourselves to express heavy-hearted feelings, we force ourselves to think deeply about our distressed circumstances and then put in the effort to reach a happy place. Even though sadness is usually associated with the experiences of loss or pain, it reminds us of what gives our lives meaning and what matters to us. With the thought of shaking things up in mind, we will find the energy and courage to move from mourning to joy.

Visualizing Our Future Success

According to psychologist Jeremy Dean, the author of the book Making Habits, Breaking Habits, we should visualize our best possible self if we want to be happy. This means we must imagine our life in the future, the bright future that could go well for us. I know it must be tough for those who have lost their loved ones, like you and me. We feel abandoned and helpless. Nevertheless, I believe we can make it. We can stand up on our own feet again if we do not give up. Remember, we are a product of our thoughts. We have to live a purposeful and happy life, for we have a reason to live. We have to live for our late loved ones too. We have to carry on their legacy.

Therefore, let’s set up a realistic and achievable goal. Then we will move forward, one step at a time, until we reach our goal. Psychologically, our brain has two parts: the conscious mind and the subconscious mind. The unconscious mind stores information that we cannot remember or control, as we can at the conscious level.

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