Loss: A Lightening Rod to Awakening

Loss can shatter our illusions of safety and be a lighting rod for spiritual awakening, or at the very least, an awakening to being fully alive.

Does loss make us lighter or heavier? Maybe both. We usually feel quite heavy with loss, not to mention discombobulated, dissociative, disconnected, and disrupted. It can make us be full of grief, anger, and disbelief when we experience loss. However, one of the gifts from loss, ironically, is the sudden shock that serves as a massive wakeup call to our reality—that we are finite beings, and the structures we’ve built our lives on, which feel solid and safe, are actually quite fragile.

I remember seeing an interview with Joe Hudson, who is a coach to people working in Silicon Valley, where he explores this idea that there is no such thing as safety. I highly recommend watching his masterful coaching sessions. I also admire the brave people willing to be so vulnerable on camera.

Most of us feel unsafe about something, whether it be safe to love, safe to receive, safe to give, safe to shine, or safe to hold power or money.

When we are constantly goal-oriented, or perfectionist, or fearful in our need to control, are we really just trying to feel safe? Life is inherently full of risk, so the true work begins when we accept the truth that nothing is "safe."

The disruption, while on one hand devastating, can also be liberating and jolt us out of our current paradigm, causing us to think and live differently. 

Safety is an illusion and loss serves as a great awakener. How can loss expand our sense of freedom, break our illusions, and wake us up to the reality of existence? Can we instead find safety in our being, in who we are? That is more than enough. In fact, it's what we've been searching for all along.

Soul-Prompt: What loss has been so disruptive that it caused me to spiritually evolve? How can suffering through loss also liberate me? And what is it liberating me from?