Letting Go

Illness and injury have a nasty habit of causing losses. Can such loss be good?

To understand my answer, we need to take a step back and consider that the human condition is marked by pain and loss, and nobody is exempt. 

The problem for patients is that some of their losses occur overnight, instead of gradually over years as happens with normal aging. And some patients experience losses shared by few, if any, of their friends and family, such as loss of:

• body part, voice, energy, fertility. 
• companionship, dreams, job opportunities.
• time (e.g., to tests, treatments and incapacity).

Dealing with unwanted loss in life-enhancing ways is essential to Healthy Survivorship and the pursuit of happiness because if you:

• stay focused on your losses, you can't see what remains.
• stay angry about your losses, you can't enjoy what remains.
• deny your losses, you can't adjust to them.

Lessons about loss learned through illness or injury can serve Healthy Survivors in the long run. The ability to deal with loss can help Healthy Survivors adjust to inevitable age-related loss more easily. And it may calm fear of death, thus freeing Healthy Survivors to enjoy life as much as possible for as long as possible.

Healthy Survivors' enhanced ability to let go may ease emotional pain at the end of life, too, for in the end everyone loses everything they know.  

Comments

[kate]

Well said! So many lessons.

[Richard]

Having experienced multiple losses of the type you describe while also caring for a mother with recurrent cancer, I have reacted too often with self destructive anger and bitterness at my lot.

Thanks for reminding us that there is wisdom and satisfaction to be had so long as life remains if only we choose to learn and adapt to our losses.

I know this to be true from my own experience, but it greatly helps to have a reminder from another. Thanks for your healing insights.

[Wendy S. Harpham, M.D.]

Dear Richard,
It amazes me how often the most simple ideas or fundamental truisms help me heal. So I share them here, with hope they might help someone else, too. Thank you for taking the time to let me know this post was useful.
With hope, Wendy