We’re expected to go back to work immediately, keep moving, to get on with our lives. But it doesn’t work that way. We need time to move through the pain of loss. We need to step into it, really to get to know it, in order to learn

Learning comes through pain.

We survive by learning from pain

After all, the only way to overcome pain is to first learn how to bear it.

In life and love, you learn that there comes a time to let go and move on.

Hayes and his colleagues have distilled these insights into seven skills for coping with loss. In more than a thousand studies over thirty-five years, they’ve found that the acquisition of this skill set predicts whether people facing loss fall into anxiety, depression, trauma, substance abuse — or whether they thrive. The first five skills involve acceptance of the bitter. First, we need to acknowledge that a loss has occurred; second, to embrace the emotions that accompany it. Instead of trying to control the pain, or to distract ourselves with food, alcohol, or work, we should simply feel our hurt, sorrow, shock, anger. Third, we need to accept all our feelings, thoughts, and memories, even the unexpected and seemingly inappropriate ones, such as liberation, laughter, and relief. Fourth, we should expect that sometimes we’ll feel overwhelmed. And fifth, we should watch out for unhelpful thoughts, such as “I should be over this,” “It’s all my fault,” and “Life is unfair.” Indeed, the ability to accept difficult emotions — not just observe them, not just breathe through them, but actually, nonjudgmentally, accept them — has been linked repeatedly to long-term thriving.

We must learn to suffer more.

the pain we suffer is a way to make us appreciate what comes next.

acknowledging all that has been lost and learning to live with that loss. It would be too soon for Keith to be able to accept this situation. He can acknowledge the reality of the loss,

Time doesn’t heal emotional pain, you need to learn how to let go.

When we accept our own pain we can begin to see past it to the other person's woundedness. We can begin to consider that if we were in their shoes, if we stood inside their story, we might have done to others what they did to us.

We ignite not in the light, but in lack thereof, For it is in loss that we truly learn to love. In this chaos, we will discover clarity. In suffering, we must find solidarity.

Accept that this experience taught you something you didn't want to know. Accept that sorrow and strife are part of even a joyful life. Accept that it's going to take a long time for you to get that monster out of your chest. Accept that someday what pains you now will surely pain you less.

don't run away
from heavy emotions
honor the anger;
give pain the space
it needs to breathe
this is how we let go