What does loss feel like in your bones? Close your eyes and tune into your heart. Notice what’s there and give yourself some compassion.

Often loss can feel heavy. We have all experienced loss in a different way, from losing a loved one to another realm to our car keys in a ditch. Although they may not seem like the same quality of loss on the surface, the body sometimes doesn’t know the difference. It simply responds in reaction to the thought of loss, then we get to work with how our body locked up or grieved or shut down because of the loss we just experienced. Either way, we’ve got to move the energy so we can be free.

Do you know of that old adage “my pain is your pain”? I believe it stands pretty true when you break it down. While it may seem ridiculous to the thinking mind that losing keys can be experienced in the body like losing a loved one…it can. We can relate to each other and our world through the commonality of what it feels like to feel. The body doesn’t have a calibrator like the brain of “well this isn’t a big loss”, it just feels what it feels. 

Our biggest asset and pitfall when it comes to handling events in our life is our thinking mind. As humans we have a unique ability to enlist our minds in these moments to assist in the re-regulation of our systems or it can spin us even further out into a loop. In my experience, setting the mind on a task that will allow us to feel all the parts of the experience, what’s true and real, works best to bring us back from being stuck in a loop. For me, often blame comes front and center, grabbing me into that loop “was it me? Was it them? Who did this?”. This is when it’s most important to enlist the mind as your ally. It’s kind of like a big mama bear trying to protect you from everything, so try to see it in that way and give it a task to ease its troubles. I like to settle my mama bear brain down by letting it know that I’ve got to feel and move this energy outside of the mind for it to be released, so mama bear mind can rest for the time being while I get my body and soul back into a spacious and fluid place. Getting to a neutral state allows me to see the gift of what is and often there really is no one to blame, only things or people to thank.

If we can keep our systems regulated then we can stand in a neutral place of observation no matter what loss is occurring in our life, micro or macro. I like to think of being able to practice on the small things, like losing keys, a favorite item or something of the like, as a micro practice building my container or capacity, so when the day comes around when I experience what would be a macro loss to my system, I can hold steady and be with my practices that support me in moving the energy in my body.

How can you get to neutrality in moments where loss seems like the most important thing? Here’s my method when the going gets a little tough:

• Find a safe and comfortable space where you can be open with yourself (finding an energy practitioner to help you move some energy may be what you need. You’ll know.)
• Acknowledge the feeling and allow it to move through in whatever way it wants to, without overindulging the feeling (this may include crying, pillow screaming, pillow throwing.. safely of course or simply sitting in silence and feeling the sensations).
• Come back to your centered self through slow and low breathing, observing the natural flow and slowing of your breath into the bellows of your belly. Find the rhythm of your heart here.
• Tell your thinking mind that there will be a shift that comes out of this loss. You may not know what it is but it may change something in your life. Deeper breath. To be able to allow and watch the change, ebbs, and flows of your life with grace is a tool that is most helpful as a human.
• Send love to the old, what you once knew that is gone. Send love to your old self pre-loss, and your new self post-loss. Send love to the newness that will come out of this shift from the loss. Send love out to anyone or anything experiencing loss in the world right now that they might feel some spaciousness to be with it. More Breathing, more space.
• From your heart, feel and fill yourself with gratitude of the things in your life that are not lost. Anything and everything will do here.
• Grab a glass of water or tea, grab a journal or a trusted friend or mentor to help you integrate and set yourself up for all the possibilities that are coming into your life now. 
• Finish up with something that’s available to you now that wasn’t there before. You are capable of amazing things, including feeling all your feels and knowing that this too will become a thing of the past—in fact everything will. 

I hope you can stay present to your experience and find the gift or learning once the dust settles. I truly believe that our experiences are preparing us for bigger moments in our lives and the universe is constantly holding and supporting us in our growth. 

When you feel yourself gripping at the past or the future, try these steps to detach and just be with your experience, letting it do its work with you, on you and for you.