Posts tagged with “loss”

5 Amazing Blessings from Being Fired

“Sometimes the wrong choices bring us to the right places.” ~Unknown

I was fired via email as my plane touched down at LAX.

I am not the kind of person who gets fired, who gets dismissed, who is asked to leave and is not welcomed back.

This was not my track record, no. What was happening?

I had seen the ad on Craigslist, and it looked perfect. An educational theater program for kids was seeking instructors and administrators to help revitalize the company. They needed someone with current experience in the entertainment industry who was an educator and also had …

Coming Home to Our Light by Embracing the Dark

By Vernette Superville

“Turn you face toward the sun and the shadows will fall behind you.” ~Māori Proverb

I am looking out of the window of the airplane. We are above the clouds; the evening sun is just setting. There is a glow all around me. I am lost in this moment. I feel like I’ve never been closer to the heavens. I can stay here in these clouds forever. I am at peace.

I am returning from my first trip to Jamaica.

I went to this island paradise on what was supposed to be a fun, party trip. Yes I had fun …

6 Ways to Decrease Your Suffering

By Maia Duerr

“The world is full of suffering. It is also full of overcoming it.” ~Helen Keller

You’ve probably heard the saying “Pain is inevitable; suffering is optional.”

For many years, I didn’t understand how pain and suffering were different from each other. They seemed inextricably wrapped up together, and I took it for granted that one was the inevitable consequence of the other.

However, as I have grown to understand my own capacity to create happiness, I noticed something interesting about the nature of my suffering.

As I reflect back on painful episodes in my life, I can recall losing people …

Be Gentle with Yourself When Dealing with Heartbreak

By Kiran Rai

“Relationships are like glass. Sometimes it’s better to leave them broken than try to hurt yourself putting it back together.” ~Unknown

I’m sitting in the nail salon near my apartment, perusing Vogue and making small talk with the woman who is cradling my hand and filing my nails. We’re catching up on our lives; I tell her I’ve been in Phoenix for the month. She nods and, in broken English, inquires about him.

I’d like to say my subsequent tears are a rarity, but lately, they seem to have a mind of their own.

I sit across from my best …

Changing Roles and Allowing Yourself to Evolve

By Marshall Bowden

“Your mind will answer most questions if you learn to relax and wait for the answer. “ –William S. Burroughs

I have worked for many years as a shelter and spay neuter veterinary technician. Earlier this year, I had the misfortune of losing the job at the shelter where I had worked for many years.

I found myself adrift. I had spent all these years caring for animals that had no one else to care for them. If I no longer had that job, I asked myself, who was I?

Who are you? It’s the most elemental question in the …

Facing the Fear of Death and Really Living Now

By Heidi Oran

“He who doesn’t fear death only dies once.” ~Giovanni Falcone

“None of us get out of here alive…” My sweet friend spoke those words, a few months before she lost her battle with Stage IV Brain Cancer at the tender age of 33.

She had a sense of humor, always, and even in the midst of her intense radiation treatments, was able to make light of a fact that is so obviously true—yet is so inherently avoided by Western culture.

Standing by my friend during her battle with cancer was the very first time in my life that I experienced …

Shifting Suffering into Gratitude: Go Upside Down

By Ilene Solomon

“Instead of complaining that the rose bush is full of thorns, be happy the thorn bush has roses.” ~Proverb

They sound so cliché, sayings like, “There’s always a silver lining” or “Look on the bright side” or “there’s a positive to every negative.” Whenever struggle or suffering showed up in my life, those key expressions seemed to flow out of the mouths of family and friends.

That’s not to say they aren’t helpful. Sure, it helps a little to hear my best friend say, “It’s going to be ok,” when I spilled water all over my computer and lost everything—everything! …

Finding Meaning in Tragedy and Moving on Stronger

By Nanette Stein

“Whenever something negative happens to you, there is a deep lesson concealed within it.” ~Eckhart Tolle

I’ve experienced a unique situation that has taught me a surprising lesson about the scope of the human races’ ability to choose love over hate, understanding over anger, and belief over fear.

I’d rather not have to tell a story like this, and my wish is that no one would ever have to learn lessons from an experience such as this. You see, my husband’s mother passed away just at the end of June.

But she didn’t just die of old age, or …

Overcoming the Fear of Loss: 5 Steps to Get Unstuck

By Lori Deschene

“Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live.” ~Norman Cousins

Of all the things that scare us, loss can seem like the most terrifying. At times, I’ve thought about it with such dread that it’s felt overwhelming.

Whenever I quit a job I hated in that past, I felt stuck between two loss-related fears: the fear of losing my passion by staying, and the fear of losing my financial security if I walked away and didn’t find something else.

Whenever I considered leaving a bad relationship, I felt paralyzed …

Learning to Embrace Change as Opportunity, Not Loss

By Kelly McQuillan

“If you correct your mind, the rest of your life will fall into place.” ~Lao Tzu

Two years ago my life as I knew it changed forever. No, I was not diagnosed with a disease, nor did I lose someone special or have a near-death experience. I actually gained some pretty amazing things: a new house, two dogs, living with my partner, and the chance to be a full-time stepmom to his two children.

But I did not initially view this change in a truly positive light.

After the dissolution of a long-term relationship, I had spent several years …

4 Powerful Lessons from a Life Well Lived

By Lori Deschene

“We must each lead a way of life with self-awareness and compassion, to do as much as we can. Then, whatever happens we will have no regrets.” ~Dalai Lama

This year on June 4^th, one of my greatest heroes passed away.

I’d been planning to travel back to Massachusetts mid-month for my sister’s bridal shower, but I learned at the end of May that my grandmother was in the hospital.

I knew she’d been in rehab since she’d fractured her hip, but I didn’t know she’d gained 30 pounds of water weight and her kidneys would soon fail …

Growing from Pain and Using it to Discover Who You Are

By Lisa Humphries

“Life’s challenges are not supposed to paralyze you; they’re supposed to help you discover who you are.” ~Bernice Johnson Reagon

At the age of 37, my beautiful young mother, who I considered my best friend, crashed her car in light rain just around the corner from our home. We will never know what really happened because she woke up from her brain injury a very different person from the one who drove away that morning.

The experience of suddenly becoming a caregiver at the age of 16, along with my 13 year-old brother and the rest of our family, could …

How to Love Without Losing Yourself

By Jennifer Gargotto

“We love because it is the only true adventure.” ~Nikki Giovanni

Last night I sat with an old friend who has recently broken up with his girlfriend. He’s sad. She’s sad.

I don’t think it was time for them to give up yet; he’s exhausted and disagrees. He says he thinks that he just loves to love. When you love to love, he says, it’s impossible to separate the act of loving from the person that you’re actually supposed to love.

He thinks that he’s too much in love with the idea of love to actually know what he wants. …

Finding Positive Ways to Express Difficult Emotions

By Dina Weldin

“Never apologize for showing feelings. When you do so, you apologize for the truth.” ~Benjamin Disraeli

Each day, month, or year I want to be something different when I grow up. At some point I want to open up a smoothie truck with a best friend, I want to teach yoga to cancer patients, and I want to travel to Australia and become a bartender just to support myself.

But more so than what I want (or think I want) to be, I know what I am. I am a wife, a sister, a friend, an Egyptian, a listener, …

It Could Be Far Worse

By Lori Deschene

“If you count all your assets, you always show a profit.” ~Robert Quillen

This weekend someone broke into my apartment and stole everything of significant monetary value that I owned.

They stole my jewelry box, with pieces I got from my boyfriend, his mother, and my sister, after she’d gone through a break-up and wanted to unload a vast collection from her past. They stole several purses in my closet, and confusing it for another, also took my makeup bag.

They took my laptop bag containing my new MacBook, my wallet, my passport, my glasses, and my boyfriend’s old iPhone, …

Will You Get Bitter or Better?

By Jennifer Boykin

“Instead of complaining that the rose bush is full of thorns, be happy the thorn bush has roses.” ~Proverb

I am a member of a mercifully small subset of society. I am the mother of a dead child.

Twenty years ago, my daughter Grace—my first child, my only girl—was born prematurely and died 32-minutes later. As I write this, I am astonished that it has been twenty years since I met my daughter for the only time.

Time stopped for me when Grace took her last little breath. And I was certain that my life could never start again.

I …

9 Lessons on Loss, Forgiveness, and Healing

By Sam Russell

“Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future.” ~Paul Boese

I’m trying to meditate but I find myself overcome by sadness; I’m still grieving after all this time.

I’ve gone through phases of forgiveness recently that have shown me how to acknowledge the painful relationship I had with my mother, the anger and resentment we shared, and the loss of each other that we both went through the older we grew. Maybe it’s not as bad as that, but it feels like it.

My reflections have brought me closer to the woman who I never took …

The Intimacy of Loss: Being Together in this Fleeting Moment

By Stephen Schettini

“We must embrace pain and burn it as fuel for our journey.” ~Kenji Miyazawa

I love my wife, so it stung the other day when she said, “Hmm … You’re going to have trouble letting me go, aren’t you?”

She’s not walking out on me. You see, she has multiple sclerosis (MS), and she’s referring to the day she can’t walk any more. She’s convinced herself that she can’t handle the guilt of ruining my life, and expects me to leave when she says so.

I knew Caroline had MS when I married her. I also knew I loved her.…

Book Giveaway and Review: A Lamp in the Darkness

By Lori Deschene

Update: The winners for this giveaway have already been chosen. Subscribe to Tiny Buddha for daily or weekly emails and to learn about future giveaways!

The 5 winners:

“Sometimes we have to go right into the fire in order to find our true healing.” ~Jack Kornfield

No matter who you are, no matter what you’ve accomplished, no matter how well you’ve planned, you will deal with challenges in life. We all will. And many times, they will hit us unexpectedly.

We will all lose things and people we love. We will all make mistakes and …