The Gift of Loss
Losing threatens our sense of self. It echoes the baked-in
fear that all humans share of annihilation. The fear of losing our identity is
clearly on display in the words we use when we win. In sports we “wipe out” a
rival team. In business we “blow away” the competition. In war the enemy is
“obliterated.” We believe that only total victory will protect our precious and
precarious self from being destroyed.
UCLA football coach “Red” Sanders came up with the saying,
“Winning isn’t everything; it’s the only thing.” If you spend just a few
moments looking at this statement it is obvious that it is incorrect. We cannot
“only” win. If winning is placed at the top of the pyramid as the essential ingredient for happiness, then our
quotient of happiness will be determined by outside conditions. In order to
really be happy, we must learn how to lose, and by doing so, we have the
opportunity to discover true equanimity and have less suffering.
Equanimity was defined by one of my teachers as “the
willingness to go as deeply into the unpleasant as we go into the pleasant.” Sure, it would be great if there were only the pleasant experiences in life, and it would spectacular if winning always happened. Or would it really be all that enjoyable? Within a short period of
time, life would become pretty stale and dull. There would be little or no
excitement or joy, and no need for passion or purpose. Life would soon become a
meaningless exercise where we are just going through the motions but not being
totally engaged. The only thing even remotely interesting would be the possibility that we might lose, or that something might be unpleasant. We would welcome losing and the unpleasant, and see them clearly
as being necessary for growth.
In the famous poem, “The Guest House,” Rumi suggests that when
“the dark thought, the shame, the malice” come to visit that we “greet them at
the door laughing and invite them in.” This is a wonderfully poetic definition
of equanimity: the willingness to greet all experiences, pleasant or
unpleasant, equally. There may not be much in the way of control over when,
where, or how the unpleasant arises, and winning or losing are, for the most
part, out of our control and in the lap of the gods. However, there is always control
and choice over how we react to difficulties. The stage play, Dear England by James Graham (2023), is a lively lesson all about learning how to
deal with losing. This true story is told from the viewpoint of English football (soccer), which, as sport often does, serves as a metaphor for the
nation of England as a whole. The England national football
club, after lackluster performances on the international stage, hire a new manager who is desperate to help the club become winners again. Taking a chance, he brings on a psychologist to help increase the players’ effectiveness on the
pitch. She tells them:
You know how to win…Whether
the stars align, that’s beyond you… What England [football club] has to learn is how to lose.
That’s what we can control. Who we are when we lose. (p.89)
What all this means is that we can get
a hell of a lot of learning out of losing.
Comedians,
sports people, musicians, and actors always say that they learn more from a bad
performance than from a good one. A dharma teacher friend of mine, Elaine
Smookler, who is also a trained clown, told me that when something goes
disastrously wrong during a performance it’s considered “a gift from the gods.”
Why would there be loss, setbacks, challenges, defeats, failures, and so forth
if they served no purpose for our insight and enlightenment? Are these
experiences meant to be thrown out like garbage; unwanted, unappreciated, and
unexplored?
In
Shakespeare’s play, Henry IV, Part 2, the title character is presented
with news of victories over the rebels who would usurp his crown. Instead of
joyfully greeting this information, Henry asks, “Will fortune never come with
both hands full?” (Act IV, Scene 4, Line 2854).
He is then overcome with foreboding that the other shoe will soon drop and now what
appears to be a win will instead become a loss. He is not proven wrong.
If we view Fortune as always presenting us with both gain and
loss, one in each hand, we might see more clearly how this paradox of the
tension of opposites serves us. When we gain it must be explicitly understood
that it is an impermanent gain. During the Roman empire, when conquering heroes
of war were welcomed back to the City with pomp and circumstance, a servant
rode beside the victor in the chariot serving two purposes: to hold the victorious
laurel wreath above the hero's head, and to whisper into his ear, “sic
transit gloria;” all worldly glory is fleeting. If we hold tight to our
gains with a closed fist, as the moment of gain slides through our hand we will suffer from “rope burn,” as described by Joseph Goldstein. If we open the hand, letting the
changes just happen, we suffer less from wanting things to be another way when
Fortune presents us with the "gift" in her other hand.
Alternatively, if we can accept loss as an inevitable and
necessary component of life, we open space for curiosity and investigation as
to what gifts the loss brings us. When we ask deep questions and allow
ourselves to be changed by the shifting nature of fortune, our suffering is
diminished. When we rail against misfortune, we are giving energy to the
negative forces of fear, anger, and ill will. We might get stuck in blame, wherein
there are very few creative solutions. In ruminating about past choices that
didn’t go the way we planned, and which we now label as “mistakes,” we limit our ability to dwell in the reality of the present moment, and to move forward
on the path from here. Rudyard Kipling (1918) wrote that we would be best served to "meet with Triumph and Disaster and treat those two imposters just the same" (p. 2).
Of course, some losses are small, and some are huge. The loss of a loved one, friend, or pet can be devastating. However, there are countless examples of how people have mined the gold of gain out of the dung heap of loss. My own father’s death launched me on a trajectory that has brought me to where I am today, writing these words. Asking what can be gained from such loss may seem impossible, absurd, and stupid in the midst of such pain, but it plants a seed in the heart and mind, although it may take time to taste the fruits that the seed produces. If we are eventually willing to turn toward the loss with equanimity, heeding what is calling to us to be known, we can experience rebirth. In the fascinating book, Trauma and Beyond, Ursula Wirtz (2021), suggests that “in every death is a kernel of life, since every life already conceals death within it” (p. 46).
One of my therapy patients was forced to face the greatest
loss imaginable, the loss of a child by suicide. “Gutted. Devastated. Hollowed
out.” These were some of the words that she used to describe the indescribable.
After some time of working together on this loss, it occurred to me to ask her
if she could identify any gain that the loss of her child had brought. She
proceeded to speak about the suicide prevention program that had sprung up at
her child’s school after his death; of a park that had been reclaimed from a
trash dump that was dedicated to his memory; of the house where they lived – a
house in which she could no longer abide – being sold and becoming a preschool.
Other children and their families were potentially saved from the bone-crushing
loss of suicide; a neighborhood connected to create a place of beauty and
peace; a tragic home became an abode of growth, learning, and love for many
other children. None of this would have happened without the loss.
With the understandings and daily life practices of experiencing impermanence, dwelling in equanimity, and opening the tight, clinging fist, so much more is available to us than we receive through simply winning and gaining. Perhaps it is possible to respond to loss by knowing that there will be gain as well. If this becomes more of a neural habit, doors will open where there were no doors, and more gain will come, potentially surpassing what was lost. The not-so-simple act of responding to loss with “something will be gained from this” could lead to a renewed sense of happiness, peace, and ease if we understand the nature of these seeming opposites.
A word of caution. If you are experiencing loss, take this process slowly. Ensure that you first attend to the sorrow and pain of the loss in whatever way and for however long you need. Also, your progress will not be smooth and linear. It will resemble a person walking on the beach with a dog running around them in circles. Both the dog and the person are moving forward. One is linear (the person) and the way we would prefer life to be, but the dog is moving forward the way life is actually lived.
The Paradox of Noise by Gunilla Norris
References:
Graham, J. (2023). Dear England. Methuen Drama.
Kipling, R. (1918). If --. Macmillan.
Norris, G. (2004). Inviting silence: Universal principles of meditation.
Rumi. (2004). The essential Rumi (Translated by Coleman Barks) (Rev. ed.). HarperSanFrancisco.
Wirtz, U. (2021). Trauma and beyond: The mystery of
transformation. Routledge.
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