Mourn Your Losses to Move Forward with Your Weight Loss Plans

Life is often bittersweet; our joy is tinged with sorrow. Accepting life’s no’s – accepting what we can’t change – is easier after a period of mourning. And yet we often ignore this healing pause. We’re afraid that by admitting our sadness, we’ll attract more.

I’ve found the opposite to be true. Working through – or, more accurately said, working out – our losses is what enables us to reach for the abundance, gratitude, optimism, and hope that we all seek.

Life is a continual death; a death in the sense that nothing ever stays the same. Impermanence affects us all. Many of us are aware of the big losses:  the deaths of friends, pets, and loved ones; an injury or illness; a relationship that sours or grows stagnant; a crisis or natural disaster.

But what about the little losses? What about the sorrow of change, of lost hope, of false expectations? I think of the stories that women have shared with me:  the sadness of an overwhelmed mother, who, while delighted at the prospect of a new baby, is likewise ambivalent at how this little one will change her life. What about the grief of a longstanding weight problem or of having to say no to trigger foods?

I’m not speaking about self-pity here, or the inertia that comes from keeping yourself stuck in your pain. I’m talking about letting yourself mourn what’s been lost, so that you are free to move forward.

Mourn your losses in a tangible way. Lucinda Herring suggests this ritual to cleanse yourself of your burdens:  Write down your losses, your disappointments, your sorrows. Pen your grief. Then light a candle, a fire in the fireplace, or even your grill and burn your sorrows. This is also something you can do with your family and your children:  we all have grief that needs acknowledged, and released.

Tend your sadness as well as your happiness. Release your grief, those burdens of the soul. It is rich compost for a fertile garden:  the blossoming thing that is your life.

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