Moving Forward Into A New Life

A few weeks ago, I posted a series of articles on what I would do if I had lost my present online business, and just last week, I posted an article about dealing with loss.  Seems to be a pattern here.

Some of my readers may wonder why I’m focused on this topic.  Simple.  My mom recently lost a life-long friend, so the topic has come up in my life.

Recovering from loss is one of the most difficult things we can do, and if we know how to handle it, we can accomplish anything.

Because when you really think about it, recovering from loss is essentially based on the idea of creating something new.  That is, once you get past the pain and frustration of having lost something you already had.

In my mom’s case, she won’t be able to “create” a new life-long friend, but she can cultivate new friendships, and some of them may fill the void she now feels.  When that happens, the feelings of loss will be replaced with feelings of connection and joy.

Now, before I move forward here, I do want to address a common misconception.  I’m not suggesting you ignore the facts of what happened.  It’s okay to feel the loss of what used to be.

The reason I say this is because many folks in the New Thought field will tell you that whatever you think about becomes your new experience in life.  And while this is true in a general sense, anything you repress and try to ignore could become stuck in your deeper mind, and would still create additional experiences you probably don’t want.

There’s a BIG difference between repressing an emotion, and replacing it.  We want to replace negative emotions with positive ones.  We don’t want to repress the negative ones.

Repressing an emotion requires you focus your mind on that emotion with the idea that it stay buried and forgotten.

Replacing an emotion requires you focus your mind on something else entirely, and not give the old negative emotion any energy at all.  If the old negative emotion comes up, you don’t fight it, you just move on to something else as you are able.

This means that when you’ve lost something or someone dear to you, you might spend a fair amount of time expressing grief, sadness, and even pain.  Don’t fight this.  Just do your best to focus on something more positive in between.

It’s our human nature to gravitate towards pleasure and away from pain.  It’s not something you have to force, it just happens on it’s own.

Give yourself something good to focus on once in a while, and your natural inclination will be to spend more time focusing on that rather than the pain of loss.

The same happens if you’ve slipped into a general depression, where nothing specific has happened, you’ve just lost “something” inside, such as the motivation to move forward, inspiration to achieve some worthwhile goal, or the confidence to expect some degree of success at SOMETHING.

BTW, I completely disagree with the medical profession who claim that depression is caused by hormonal imbalances, to be fixed with the drugs the doctors (a.k.a. – professional drug dealers) are peddling.  It’s in their financial interest to convince you that you need to buy whatever they’re selling.  Here, I’m not selling you anything, except a belief in yourself, which doesn’t cost you anything.

A loss of confidence, motivation, and/or inspiration can create a hormonal imbalance.  This is why their science found a correlation.  They just have it backwards.  Correct the belief, and the hormones will balance themselves out.

Okay, you may be thinking this is all well and good, but what can you actually DO to move forward from a significant loss and rebuild a life you’ll enjoy living?

First, realize it’s not going to happen overnight.  The more significant the loss, the longer it’s going to take.  Someone cuts you off in traffic, and you can recover in seconds.  Lose a spouse of 20 years, and it may take a month or more.

Next, start small.  Find something in your life that’s good, and allow yourself to focus as much of your mind on that as you can. 

Remember back to a time when you enjoyed an experience without the person/thing you lost.  It may have been some delicious food.  It may have been sitting by a fire, or soaking in a hot tub.  It may have been getting a massage, or reading a book, or watching a movie.  Whatever it was, take time to engage in that activity with the intent that you’re going to focus your whole mind on enjoying yourself.

Of course, it works better if you approach it as an enjoyable activity and not as a tough assignment you have to grit your teeth to get through.  But if you have to start out gritting your teeth and pushing yourself, do it.  The payoff is worth it.

Ideally, you want to get so completely wrapped up in this good thing that you forget everything else.  Probably won’t happen the first few times, but do your best.

If you lost your focus after a minute, be okay with that.  You at least gave it a try.  Try again when you can.  Keep trying, and you’ll eventually get to a point where you can focus on a good thing for 5 minutes, then 10 minutes, then 15 minutes.  Keep going, and you’ll find that you can spend an hour or two focusing on something good and get completely lost in it.

When you do this, you’ll find that you start to attract more blessings into your life, and you have more reasons to feel good.

It’s just a matter of practicing often enough so you develop a new way of living.

BTW – my new 30 Days to Divine Power e-course takes an easy, step-by-step approach towards finding the good in your life, focusing your whole mind on that, and manifesting Divine Blessings into your life.  It was developed from the standpoint of helping those who have come from difficult experiences, and therefore need a little extra help finding those positive things to focus on.

If you need a little help moving forward after experiences a significant loss, give this e-course a try.  You’ve got nothing to lose, and a world of Divine Blessings to gain.

Be blessed, my friend.