We all experience loss in our life.

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Whether it is loss of a loved one, a career, or a home.

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The hard part is not usually the loss itself.

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It is the story we make from the loss.

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For we often tell ourselves that loss is permanent.

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And sometimes it is.

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Or the loss is our fault.

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So there is guilt from the loss.

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Perhaps even we wanted it to happen.

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Being human, that might even be true.

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So what if those stories are true?

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What does it matter how we felt, what we did or didn't do?

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We probably didn't make the loss happen.

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Even if we played some small part, we were not the ones who took the life, took the job, or took the home from us.

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Certainly there is grief from the loss.

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Of course, we feel the pain of the loss.

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Yet we only suffer from the loss because f the stories we make up inside our minds.

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As if is actually is our fault.

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How could that be?

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Can we control all the factor in the world that brought every little piece of the puzzle together to make it happen?

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Not likely.

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Could we have said something or did something different?

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Yes, we could have.

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Would it have made a difference?

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We don't know, nor will we ever be able to know.

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Maybe it would have, maybe not.

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In the end it does not matter.

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Because we could not have done anything different.

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If we could have, we would have.

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We did not have the foresight to see the implications of our actions or non-actions.

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Perhaps if we were supposed to, we would have been able to.

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Yet we didn't.

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And all the guilt and all the shame will never change that fact.

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It has happened.

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Because it has happened, it is now in the past and can we can not change it.

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So what can we do? How can we move forward?

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To honor the loss.

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And feel the grief.

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To allow ourselves to feel our feelings without making a story about it.

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Who are we to judge ourselves in that manner?

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Let's let life decide about our part in the loss and do the best we can to move forward.

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The loss is real and it did happen.

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What is important is how we show up in the future, not the past.

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So where are you letting a loss how you back from being the best you can be?

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~ Sam Liebowitz, The Conscious Consultant