Acceptance After Loss: A Water Method Approach

By Paul Cavel

From a Taoist perspective, loss is a natural part of living. You cannot live a life without losing something, and at the end of the day, you are going to lose everything, including your life.

For this reason, the Taoists have always looked at how to become comfortable with letting go. They discovered two factors that prevent people from letting go when they are clearly not in control of the scenario at hand. The first is attachment and the second is expectation, and each creates and reinforces the other. If you have an expectation about how things should be, how things should go, then you become attached to the outcome. If you have an attachment to something, someone or events, then you will generate expectations.

Disappointment

When life does not go our way, we often struggle because of these expectations and attachments. If you go into business, you expect to make money. If you enter into a new relationship, you expect to give and receive love. The thing about an expectation though, is that it sets you up for disappointment. Disappointment is one aspect of loss. When you lose something that you want or you had, disappointment is fast to follow.

The human ego creates scenarios to make you feel as though you are in control. However, I think we can all agree that, given the state of affairs in the world right now, nobody can say they are in control. So how can the Taoist perspective and their meditation methods help?

Acceptance

The first step is acceptance. You have to accept that which you cannot control. If you are experiencing a loss – something, someone – and there is no way that you can get it/them back, the only path to peace is through acceptance.

There is so much tension and anxiety attached to loss because the ego has not let go. The ego is still holding on to that which it wants. It does not matter if it is a small thing or a big thing. Releasing anxieties through letting go of the expectation, letting go of the attachment, is what allows you to release, relax and move forwards in your life.

Profound Loss

If you are dealing with a more profound loss, such as the death of a loved one, a job that you loved and worked in for many years – anything to which your ego, your identity has become intertwined and tangled – it will take time to let go. You might find yourself going through cycles of a glimpse of acceptance and then, again, the emotions come in. This is natural. From a Taoist perspective, the sooner you can let go and the sooner you can release those bindings, those expectations, those attachments, the sooner your life can get back to a smooth, stable and balanced state.

Letting Go

The funny thing about a loss, whatever it might be, is that space is generated in your life afterwards. That space allows new things to come to fruition. Even though you may not want to lose whatever it is that you have lost and even though you might find it hard to be without something or someone, once you get to the point of acceptance – once you truly let go of holding on to something that you cannot have and have no control over – the sooner the cosmos can help guide your life in a more purposeful direction.

Several times in my life, I have consciously finished everything, sold or given away most of my possessions and moved on without any promise of what was to come. As I reflect back, what came from those scenarios was much more than I could ever have expected. I could not have imagined the events, people or opportunities that came my way and all that they brought to my life.

The Tao Weaves

Taoists consider that the Tao is the source of everything. The Tao weaves and supplies everything we need in a very intricate web. 

Letting go might be a difficult hurdle. Complete acceptance might be a difficult hurdle right now. But once you can overcome these hurdles, once you release the attachments, once you release the expectations, then you can open to new possibilities, a new experience of life. That might not be possible to envision in this moment, but remember Lao Tse’s wisdom shared in the Tao Te Ching:

"The hard and the stiff are the disciples of death, the soft and supple are the disciples of life".

We can cultivate mental and emotional flexibility by not being afraid to look around, to look inside and simply observe, become aware of what is – and what is not, as the case may be. Without letting go, we are stuck in the past and cannot see or make sense of the opportunities that lay in front of us. The act of letting go is precisely what makes space for and invites in the new. It makes life fresh by giving you the vigour to grow and evolve, which is your destiny.

In Memory of Jenice Hale (1950-2023)

Loss: A Guided Meditation

With sympathy and condolences for all that you have lost, I hope my short meditation on loss will provide some comfort and direction when you are ready to sit and let go: