The Irony of Life, Part 30: Accepting Loss

When my Durango realtor asked why I decided to list my house, I smiled and said, “I’d like one more adventure.”  Like the character said in the Knight and Day film, “I didn’t know it would hurt this much.”

Would my experience have been different if the buyers and the realtors had kept the contingency agreement in the contract we all signed?  I believe it would, but it doesn’t make a difference, because here I am now.  It is what it is.

Accepting What IS, is required in my spiritual belief.  As Gurudev says, “I am completely at peace with what is present.  I am unconditionally always present and facing reality as it is”(1).

Accepting my loss of “the perfect location for me” (2) was surprisingly difficult, and it’s not over yet.  Even so, I finally made an offer on a house, as a signal to my mind to “Let Go! And Let God.” 

But my grief killed the deal when, after the inspection, the seller refused to pay for at least half of all the things wrong with it. 

Months later, driving around, I found a different house, one that met all the requirements I had given my realtor.  But it was a “For Sale By Owner” house, and the sellers told me the price would be higher if realtors were involved. 

I chose to let that one go, and resumed looking at houses with my realtor.  But now she showed me only houses that were listed, and only two were “move-in ready.”  I like them, but they both had issues I didn’t want to deal with.

Like Goldilocks, there was only one that was “just right”—the one I had let go.  Sadly, I didn’t believe I could afford it.  The house I sold in Durango was a triplex.  My realtor’s CPA gave me a free estimate before the closing of that property—i.e., it could be more. 

But accepting life as it IS, demanded that I commit to being here.  Buying a house might do that.  And so, I spent September asking those who owned a house that size what it cost to maintain it, including central air and heat, pest control, and property taxes.  None of those were in my experience.

I created a two-part budget:  one for the house, the other for my personal life with two cats.  The combined budget would spend every cent of my teacher retirement check! 

The pressure was on to find out exactly what I would owe on capital gains taxes.  Of course, the best way would be to wait until I had filed my 2020 taxes.  But that wouldn’t work for me for two reasons:  I want out of this rented house as soon as possible, and I need the commitment of buying a house to “keep me here” (as in this body).

The amount of stress I’ve been under since I listed my house in February combined with little sleep since then plus the unexpected grieving for the loss of home demanded that I accept and move on. 

Then I came across The Wisdom Codes by Gregg Braden, and my depression was lifted.  Someone understood my loss!  “Part Three:  Loss” begins with a quote from Norman Cousins:  “The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live.”

But the part that lifted me was in Braden’s introduction to the chapter that deals with the loss of a loved one:

Loss is a universal experience.

It’s inevitable.  It’s inescapable. And it’s natural.  We all lose something each day of our lives.  Sometimes our losses are so subtle that they’re almost imperceptible. …

While the incremental change of a new mall or the loss of a favorite late-night cafe may seem insignificant as it occurs, when we put those changes together and look backward in time, we find that the way we remember our neighborhood is barely recognizable when compared to the current version of our surroundings.

And although our logic tells us that it’s natural for our surroundings to change, we rarely give our emotions the opportunity to catch up and adjust to the shift.  In our culture, we’re expected to just ‘go with the flow’ and embrace the transformation.  The truth is, however, that we need time to adjust.  We need time to acclimate to the void of the loss of familiar things leaves in our lives and in our hearts. …

It’s in our willingness to accept our loss that we heal (3). …

Through the grief that follows loss, we temporarily experience emotional and physiological shock. And even when we’re surrounded by the best-intentioned friends and loved ones, and receiving support, just as it is with fear, as described in Part Two, we ultimately go through the gauntlet of grief alone. No one can grieve for us.

Grief is a solo journey. And that journey often leads us to a battleground within ourselves where we discover conflicting emotions and the feeling of being empty, numb, and isolated. With our conflicted emotions come the seemingly endless questions that loop tirelessly in our mind: among them, Will I ever feel better? What do I do now? Why is this happening? There is a strength that can only be known in the presence of loss and grief. And with that strength comes the reward of life’s deepest levels of personal mastery (4).

I’m so grateful for the codes in this book!  Many of them have been part of my life since I was a child.  Others joined them when I became a yoga teacher.  The difference now was in learning how the codes work.

__

Sources:

1. Yogi Amrit Desai, Journey Through The Body, an Amrit Method™ Yoga Nidra Experience.
2. Please see Part 29
3. Gregg Braden, The Wisdom Codes, pp. 73-74.
4. Gregg Braden, The Wisdom Codes, p.77.

Till next time,

Please be kind to everyone you meet, for we all have our hidden sorrows. ~Tzaddi