Sometimes extreme suffering and loss can cause us to question whether there really is a ‘caring’ entity known as God or if we’re all just on this planet through some accident. While I cannot answer what ‘God’s’ plan is, or what the specific ‘meaning’ is behind an individuals suffering (the ‘reason’ is different for everyone), I do believe there is a way to RESPOND to suffering and loss in a healthy manner. Having a method for dealing with loss doesn’t mean loss won’t still hurt, it just means you can learn from it and get on with your life more quickly.

A DISCLAIMER ON ‘LOSS EFFICIENCY’
Sometimes people subconsciously want to suffer for extended periods of times as a way to remain connected with the object of their love or to express how much they truly cared for someone. Dealing with loss quickly and moving on with life is generally not acceptable in today’s society. If a man’s wife dies and he’s out enjoying himself a week later – for most people that must ‘mean’ he didn’t really care for her or maybe he secretly wanted out of the marriage. They most likely wouldn’t think, “Oh, he must have an effective method for dealing with loss.” As a result of society’s linking mourning to caring, a prolonged period of suffering (or appearing as though they are suffering) might actually be preferred by some.

On the other side of the coin, some people have naturally developed the ability to move on quickly and might feel guilty about doing so. They might ask themselves, “What is wrong with me – why don’t I suffer longer like everyone else? Do I NOT care?” Understanding that subconsciously you might link your mourning period to caring is important. When your realize that the length of time you suffer doesn’t necessarily equate to how much you care – you free yourself from prolonged suffering. You can really love and care for someone AND return to a resourceful state quickly.

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A letter to a mourning grand daughter and a father questioning the existence of God

Sorry to hear about the challenges your grandmother faced before leaving this planet. As for the ‘meaning’ behind your grandmother’s suffering – I can understand why that might cause someone to question spirituality and the existence of God. I have struggled with the question myself when I think of soldiers beating down doors, raping and then murdering a mother in front of a husband and children. Imagining extreme evil helps to define extreme goodness. Extreme suffering creates a space for extreme joy to exist. In the words of Kahlil Gibran, “Sorrow carves out our being, but the space it makes provides room for more joy in another season of life.”

THE MEANING OF SUFFERING & LOSS
The meaning of your grandmother’s suffering is whatever you make it – and it’s different for everyone. To your grandmother it could be the final phase of her journey where she had an important lesson to learn about letting go of her body and the need to control things; an important lesson for the Ego to learn. For your father it could be a lesson of detachment from that which is temporary; it was inevitable that they would have to part ways on this Earth, one way or another. Perhaps he should be grateful that it was she that went first instead of him, for example is it possible that ‘God’ may have spared your grandmother from having to watch HIM suffer and die? Perhaps a loving God would know that it was HE that was the stronger of the two.

NEVER WHAT WE EXPECT
Death and suffering never really does happen the way we would expect. There’s a good chance we will be sad, disappointed and surprised anytime someone close to us suffers and dies, yet this has been going on for thousands of years. All you have to do is look around and see there is loss happening every day. The only guarantee in life is change. Everything and everyone around us are temporary. This includes our closest relationships and our own physical body.

UNDERSTANDING TEMPORARINESS
Understanding the dual nature to all creations prepares you for loss. When we are in love – we should not be surprised if hate or pain lurks on the other side. When we enjoy something temporary, we should not be surprised if loss and suffering happens.

Even with understanding, loss may still hurt when it happens – but it helps to really embrace the temporariness of life in advance. Rather than getting angry or feeling singled out – we can say “well, it is what it is“. It is what it is. (no meaning associated with it, just a statement of fact.) This doesn’t mean we didn’t care very much for the person or whatever we lost. It simply means we recognized even during the ‘glory days’ it was all a temporary experience. And rather than becoming attached to the things we enjoy most (like people and conditions)– instead we can truly appreciate them when they are here and wave good bye in a healthy, resourceful manner when they are gone.

IN SUMMARY
1) Change is going to happen whether we like it or not. The only thing we decide is how we respond to the inevitable.
2) Reminding ourselves daily that everything we are experiencing now is temporary (by imagining them as already gone), will prepare us when the inevitable departure occurs.
3) And when loss happens – we don’t have to link any meaning to it. It is what it is. The important question to ask is this: What have I learned from the experience so I can be a better person and live a better life?

This breath so alive
it fades into the next
and so on they go
where do they go, I wonder

My place; like a breath
alive in this moment
ready to fade
but where will I go, I wonder

One that I neglected to mention but probably deserves the highest priority in a ‘tight’ routine is your thinking. Whereas you might control other activities by scheduling them for an hour of your day – thoughts are automatically on your schedule at all times! For this reason – high value thinking is your most important routine.

How do you ensure that your thoughts are of a high value nature? Engage your relationships in a way that lead to high value thinking (love). Engage your work in a way that leads to high value thinking (do what you love, love what you do, give, make a difference.)

Actions leave thoughts in their wake. This is why it’s important to engage in work that you enjoy, that you’re good at, that you feel is making as difference in the world versus work that merely satisfies your material interests. Again, Actions leave thoughts in their wake.

The most consistent routine is that which goes on in your head. Your thought patterns dictate the quality of your consciousness. Unless you take direct control over your thoughts in the form of filtering thoughts and choosing to engage in activities that make it easier for positive thoughts to circulate – you will find it difficult to be happy. And remember, to truly be happy might mean cutting off activities that are unfulfilling yet offer some form of security. This is one of the toughest sacrifices you’ll ever make, but one that must be done if it’s holding you back.

FULL POTENTIAL ACTION STEPS:
1. What actions could you take to improve your thought routine?

Lucid happiness is NOT passive. Lucid happiness is NOT a state of effortless nirvana. Lucid happiness is a choice, an act of will. Lucid happiness does NOT happen to you, it’s something that you decide you want to experience and then you go about creating it.

Lucid happiness is not just creating happiness through material pleasures, although temporary happiness is to be had in material pleasures – but lasting, lucid happiness is created in the way you perceive things; making a choice to change perception if it doesn’t serve your personal happiness, like a person who tries on prescription glasses and makes the choice to change them until they can see clearly.

The decision to be happy is not to be confused with positive thinking while standing in a painful flame. Denial of painful realities is not going to produce the clarity essential for lucid happiness. Be aware of the painful realities and take action to resolve them. Once you’ve stepped out of the pain of your own fire, you’ll be happy for a while; compared to life in the fire, life out of the fire is much better. But then it isn’t long before you feel compassion for those who are still standing in the pain of their own fires and through helping them out of it an even higher level of happiness is possible. That is lucid happiness – a higher awareness.

So the four steps to lucid happiness are:
1) Making the choice to be happy (and never wavering in this decision!)
2) Becoming aware of painful realities
3) Stepping out from the pain of your own fire
4) Helping others do the same

When you seek physical objects first (aside from fulfilling basic survival needs) you sacrifice emotional fulfillment in pursuit of some object you assume will ultimately produce a desired emotional state. Shortcut the process by clearly specifying the emotional state you desire and remaining open to other channels through which that emotional state can be achieved.

Seeking emotional states leaves the ‘means by which you reach those emotional states’ open, rather than seeking physical objects in the assumption that will produce a desired yet unspecified emotional state. The good news is this, emotional states can be achieved very rapidly, while physical goals can take a long time to manifest.

An emotional goal is something like this:
To FEEL more love in my heart
To FEEL more peace
To FEEL more compassion for others
To FEEL more secure financially
To FEEL more freedom
To FEEL more adventure or excitement in my life.

When you prioritize emotional states over physical objects, you can feel good now while you work towards your physical goals. As a result of higher energy, you will accelerate the physical goal manifestation process. And because you’re not relying on physical objects to give you certain emotions, you will have a much more stable emotional state.