“The miracle of
gratitude is that it shifts your perception to such an extent that it changes
the world you see.”
-Dr. Robert Holden
After we experience a loss, we tend to focus on what we no
longer have. As a result we put our energy on the negative, or what is missing
in our life, rather than on the positive, or all of those wonderful things we
still have. One of my spiritual teachers once told me that when we want what we
don’t have, we waste what we do have. To translate that into loss-related
situations—to want what is no longer in our life is to waste what still remains
in our life.
We usually don’t think about giving thanks when someone
dies. Yet gratitude can be one of the most healing tools we have.
I would therefore like to suggest that being grateful for
what remains after you have experienced a loss can be a powerful way to deal
with, and heal, that loss. Turning your attention on how your life was enriched
because that person was in it, for example, rather than on the vacuum the loss
created, might be one powerful and healthy approach to confronting grief.
After my wife died at the age of thirty-four, my thoughts, as
often experienced by someone who is grieving, sometimes turned to darker
questions like, “How can I go on with my life without her?” Grief also brought
up a feeling of emptiness, depression, and hopelessness. Once I started to be
thankful for all that remained in my life—my daughter, my friends, my work,
etc.—I got a glimpse of why I could go on living and, in fact, fully enjoy life
again.
Gratitude has the power to help those in mourning rise above
their loss. It is life affirming. It can provide hope. And, perhaps most
important, it can help us let go of the past and focus on the abundance that
surrounds us now.
In my book, Learning
to Laugh When You Feel Like Crying (Goodman Beck, 2011), I suggest a simple
way to move towards being grateful after a loss:
Tomorrow morning, before you get
out of bed, think of at least one thing that you are thankful for. And then,
when you get out of bed, start writing down all the wonderful things in you
life. You can be thankful for:
-a
penny found on the street
-the
cookies a neighbor brought you
-the
friends you have
-a
rainbow
-flowers
in the park
-a
cup of tea.
Those are just of few little gratitudes that can keep you
afloat while you are in a sea of grief. But you might also want to note some of
the bigger things for which you are grateful. For example:
-that the
deceased was in your life
-the
lessons you learned from them
-that their
spirit still lives within you.
And, you can be grateful for life itself. As comedian Robin
Williams discovered after his heart surgery: “When you have something like
heart surgery, you appreciate the simple things, like breathing.”
