If you were about to embark on a spiritual path and someone told you that you would suffer losses that you would never fully understand, and that they maybe quite brutal, would you want to take that path? For those with nothing much to lose they may well agree and take a chance, but when you’ve lost everything (or what seems like everything) would you? You see this is the part where people either don’t admit to losses when they have been or are on a spiritual path, or they skim over them in their biographies and you wonder if they were truly losses at all. I’ve read of a few spiritual writers who say they hit rock bottom and that’s when an angel came to them or a spiritual path opened up, but that doesn’t help someone who is struggling right now. Instead you see their smiling photo next to their biography on a shiny website, next to ads for their latest books or workshops. It’s hard not to be cynical or skeptical, but it’s supposed to give you hope that all will work out rosy for you if you suffer similar losses.
The truth is not everyone will have a rosy outcome; many will come through stronger, however some will find themselves in a period of uncertainty and despair. I was reminded recently that when you experience loss it’s accompanied by confusion and anger, mingled with frustration and a need to understand why these things are happening. Trying to tell someone to stay calm, patient, to have faith, and trust doesn’t work and I know because I’ve been there myself. I’ve been angry, lost, annoyed, and full of despair wondering if I was such a bad person. I don’t think or believe I am, and I’m not perfect and get angry at things and myself, but I’m not evil and I don’t relish in the misfortune of others.
Why does spirituality entail loss, and is it necessary? Everyone loses something during an incarnation and some get over it quickly, and others don’t whether it’s the loss of someone close, or the loss of something that gave comfort or stability. I know the phrase we learn from loss won’t be much comfort to someone who has just lost things close to them, but we do learn to live with it in time and in our own way. All I can say is that eventually you may see the positive outcome from it, rather than dwell on what has been lost. You may still harbor anger and question why, and the thing is we can never 100% know why something has happened, and using up energy trying to find out can be a fruitless task. Quite simply Spirit won’t tell always you, and if you persist you create a negative energy field and stall any spiritual growth.
I wrote about spiritual losses on my other blog last year, and what I have seen and learned is that accepting losses takes time.
https://visionarymusings.wordpress.com/2017/09/28/a-spiritual-perspective-of-loss-and-failure/
It’s not that easy to just forget and move on, and it’s like a failed relationship, you remember the good times and try and forget the bad ones. When we lose material objects that mean something to us it can appear superficial, but if the object has an emotional attachment, it makes the loss much harder to accept. I’m a little like that with my books, and I’ve never given any away that I have bought myself. Each book I have bought (with the exception of college reading lists) has been chosen by me for a reason and it’s a part of my existence. Ultimately when I have transitioned though they will no longer serve a purpose to me, but maybe to someone else unless they are destroyed (!). When I heard my mother say she had given away some books, my heart skipped a beat in case she accidentally gave away one of mine. She now knows better than to even touch them.
The spiritual church I once attended in Salem had a minister who was losing her teenage daughter to cancer. You didn’t know what to say to her as she kept her faith and we referred to her daughter being in the process of transitioning. No matter how spiritual you are, losing someone or something hurts and it can break you for a moment, but you can and will survive. Many would question why someone so spiritual was losing their daughter, and it was not something she addressed although I know many had hoped she would.
We can’t actually lose things that have not come to pass, for example a job we chose not to accept, a college place that was turned down, a date with someone because you were too busy, or a house that you wanted to buy but came off the market. We can mourn things we yearned for in hindsight, but they are not losses for you can only lose what actually came to transpire. There is also the possibility that malevolent forces may have interfered and brought about losses, and while that’s a distinct possibility that is a job for your Guides to battle out and negotiate karmic debt. That is unless you have been dabbling with spirituality and opened up portals to allow negative entities in, and in this case it’s a matter of learning from errors. This is the reason I don’t discuss or encourage activities such as astral projection, lucid dreaming, or unprotected meditations. I’m not one for meditation myself, but others find it helpful for spiritual connections and can be done safely as long as it’s in a protected space and any portals that have been opened are closed. During a meditation more than one can be opened. and in a group meditation there will be numerous ones.
I recalled my own losses as I write this, and back then I sought guidance from another and her words gave me little solace. I had lost pretty much everything in a matter of months from my home, job, and my self worth. It was like the ultimate Dark Night of the Soul, and I saw the face of my reader who solemnly told me that Spirit needed to do this so I would follow the path I had agreed to pursue. She could see my pain and suffering, and yes I wanted to know why, but she could also see that it wouldn’t have helped. I did realize that I needed to follow the signs to the spiritual work I had agreed to and that I had procrastinated over for so long, but did they need to do it in such a harsh and swift manner? I didn’t have the energy to get angry any longer as I wanted to survive and I wanted control of my life back and it’s something I am still fighting for.
That’s not the end as my freedom was also taken away later on, not so drastic in the sense of incarceration but through a battle of my conscience to stay and look after a dying parent that fell ill all of a sudden. It’s the same for a parent who looks after a disabled child who no longer has the freedoms or choices they once had. Just before my father fell ill I looked for jobs and contacted my old agents, but phone calls and texts didn’t get through and jobs were either lost or fell through. No matter how hard I tried, I fought for my freedom back and decided to look for a part-time job while my father was recovering. It was a mere thought, but two months later he ended up back in hospital on his death bed again, so that plan was again put to an end. You see as much as free will exists (limited in my view) we do lose things, but only temporarily for things can be replaced and can change, and you learn to live without and with what you have. I won’t lie and say it’s easy, but it’s tolerable and you may miss things, but you learn to live without much. A Dark Night of the Soul teaches you that at least, and that you can survive on very little.
Loss does bring about a feeling of emptiness and leads to a propensity for dwelling on what you could have been, but dwelling is not growth and a period of mourning is fine, but from it we have to learn to appreciate things on a greater level. I appreciate the freedoms I used to have versus what I have now and I admit openly I still get frustrated, but I know it’s not forever. That doesn’t always help when I’m having a rough time, but I’ve been through worse and survived, and that’s the mode I’m in; learning through survival, and accepting that losses occur, and although we can’t control them, we can control how they affect us.
Incarnations aren’t always easy to understand, and the blunt truth is we don’t get given the answers why whenever we wish. Whatever the reason it doesn’t mean that we will like or accept them anyhow, and often Spirit doesn’t reveal the answers because whatever is being played out has not come to fruition or the answer would not help but hinder growth. Spirituality is about growth, but to grow we must learn to cope and deal with losses, and taking a spiritual path means both growth and losses will be enhanced. It’s part of the spiritual see-saw of life where we grow and discover strengths through losses, but also realize the difference between what we need and what we want.
The Soul Expedition 