PEr Chronicles: Upside of loss

The assassination of Japan’s longest-serving leader, shot twice with a homemade shotgun in a country where gun violence is exceedingly rare; sent shock waves around the world. It prompted an outpouring of grief.

Our stories of loss and separation may be different. Whether it was a small loss, or a big one, I’m acutely aware the time to understand the events, let alone heal from them is painful. Maybe I’ve learned something that could be of use to you.

What are you separated from: what or whom have you lost? Did the love of your life betray you? Did your parents divorce when you were young, did your mother die, was she cruel?

Some people facing loss fall into anxiety, depression, trauma, substance abuse – while others thrive. The key is to use our pain as a source of information about what matters to us – and then to act on it. To investigate, accept the bitter and commit to and connect with the sweet.

“The moment my dog Claire died, something died in me,” Evon explained. “It’s taken me a long time to accept that the person I was with Claire is gone. But I’ve been reborn, when one door closes, another opens. There’s space now for a new me to emerge. It’s not something I would have chosen. I would have happily been a complete unit with Claire for the rest of my life. But when you do recover from any loss – a new part grows, and that’s where I am now.”

“Getting let go by the company you work for is one of life’s most difficult emotional experiences. We experience a sudden powerlessness that destroys our confidence and feelings of self-worth. It affects our self-esteem. We feel betrayed. It is traumatic, isolating, and in fact, devastating,” lamented a former VP, Commercial, APAC. “Losing your job even though you excelled at it, affects your professional identify and ability to look for other work. The way employers delivered the news compounded the hurt. Curt, at best, mean at worst.?Some were immediately asked to retrieve their belongings. They couldn’t even say goodbye. And now, in this time of COVID-19, some were let go on Zoom calls. Up until the time we got fired, we trusted our bosses and expected our employers to act honourably. We thought they appreciated our work and our contributions. Many of us had no sense that something like this could happen to us. We worked with these people. We liked these people.”

When I was little, I was sick a lot and had asthma, and in secondary school, I was not really accepted by classmates for a while. In my late 20’s from the outside, the optics of my life were: Paul is successful. The job, car, house, lifestyle – it appeared as if I was riding high. But I wasn’t. I was being squashed under crushing debt. My personal earthquake happened and I didn’t know how to reinvent and keep climbing. I made it up the corporate ladder and was a high-achiever at work! Of course I’ll be able to get out of this mess! I repeatedly assumed the formula I used to go from computer operator to Asia Pacific Top salesperson, the very same linear, step-by-step formula would be the formula to escape my financial devastation. Instead, everything I tried sputtered. I fought my financial mess, but eventually I felt impossibly stuck. I felt helpless.

You don’t know what you’re made of until you’re broken.?Being broken gives you the ability to build yourself all over again, but this time around, build yourself stronger than ever. Through these experiences, I saw the world through the eyes of the weak. And that was an incredibly valuable experience for me. Even after becoming Vice President of Sales & Marketing, Asia, which was far from a weak position, I could never lose sight of my earlier experiences, nor do I look back on those hard times and feel any resentment whatsoever.

Making meaning from endings is largely an individual task, and it is difficult to move on from endings when we cannot give them any meaning. It doesn’t have to be this way. I hope to reassure you who are at the crossroads and needing to figure out your next path that you are not alone and you do not have to be without hope.

Support from friends was essential to my healing. I made effort to learn about myself, moved out of fear and became a better me. I have a couple of coaches and benefit greatly from their wisdom and validation that I am of value.

I am not one who says losing something or someone is a good thing. It isn’t. I lost so much – my identity and for a while, my path. Nonetheless, I found positive aspects of my loss. I now believe I had to leave that environment to fully embrace my purpose in life. It took time to accept that “God did for me what I could not do myself.” I wish it had not been so painful an experience.

The best way to heal yourself? Heal others.

I don’t believe we can escape our past. But many of us are wounded healers and move actively towards love. Maybe we adopt a dog and lavish it with care. Maybe we simply put down our phones and pay closer attention to our friends and families.

Or maybe, as I did, we take up coaching roles – the practice of wishing well to others. I love what I do now. I share my experiences and expertise to help others find their path.