But What Do You Gain?

“A heart as light as a feather…”

Some of us are carrying dead weight we should have buried long ago…

In the form of friendships.

Relationships.

Environments.

Jobs.

Ideas.

Beliefs.

Habits.

And we wonder why life feels like it’s a standstill.

We wonder why we feel stuck.

We spend countless hours praying for new opportunities to fall into our laps, looking for a way out of what we’re not even willing to look AT. We journal and try to ‘manifest’ our way into a new reality, not realizing that  letting go of what is weighing us down IS the prerequisite for the opportunities, for the new reality, we are trying so hard to forcefully generate. 

We ignore all the nudgings telling us to let go of what is long gone because we want to have our cake and eat it too. Because we’re too scared to temporarily have no cake at all while a new one is baking.

Many of us live in a society that chastises loss, and downright ignores it most times, treating it as taboo. 

Look at how perceived “losers” of any sporting event are typically treated: with ridicule, with disrespect, sometimes with harm. 

You cannot learn the lesson that comes from loss if you treat losing at best, like an annoyance.

At worst, a pariah.

You will not learn the lesson from loss if you reject any outcome other than what you expected as an enemy, and not the mirror that it truly is.

How can you truly change if you are too afraid to let go for fear of what you will lose, rather than what you will gain? 

Loss is a fact of life. It’s not a fluke. It’s not a mishap. 

Loss, or put another way, the preferential happenings that we perceived as NEGATIVES, are required for balance.

Just like batteries that require both positive and negative electrodes to function, we too require the negative in order to identify exactly what the positive really looks like for us.

And in order for our hearts to be weightless, in order for us to take the L from our lessons and turn them into Ws, we must be willing to let go of that which weighs us down.

We must be willing to look at disappointment and use it as an opportunity to strengthen our inner reserve by accepting what went “wrong” and taking accountability for our role in the situation.

Loss, and subsequently, change can be difficult to swallow. Which is why you must chew more slowly. We must take our time to digest  why what is no longer working, is no longer working, and make peace with its need to be released. 

Life is only against us only when we believe it is. Does that mean that atrocities and adversity don’t exist? Quite the opposite actually. 

Choosing to believe that Life is always working for us means that we are CHOOSING to believe that no matter what we experience in Life, we are equipped to handle what is thrown our way .

Choosing to believe that Life is always working for us means that we are WILLING to fight, in whatever way that means for us, for an existence and a reality that supports our highest dreams, goals and ideals. And to hell with anyone and anything forming weapons against us. Including ourselves.

To look at loss and digest it not only as something that we lose, but most importantly, as a portal for new opportunities to gain, is true alchemy. 

So before you resign yourself to another day within a relationship, an occupation or a mindset that is no longer working…

Before you begrudgingly once again say “yes” to what you know in your heart is a no, ask yourself:

What have I learned?

Where CAN I go?

What will I gain?

When I am free.