Everyone seeks perfection. The score of the perfect 10, the perfect attendance award, and the perfect football season act as carrots in front of our noses motivating us to be our best.
After an almost perfect unbeaten season, the Carolina Panthers finally lost…their record: 15-1. During a TV interview, the host kept referring to the “loss” as a pivotal point for the team. The coach, Ron Rivera, put things in perspective for us all, “The loss doesn’t define who we are.”
We need to remember that our losses do not define who we are either. In fact, I think that we are meant to “lose it”, along the way. What’s important is how we deal with “losing”.
Over time, the years bring our losses. Our losses may bombard us as one earthshaking event or maybe just creep up on us. Gradually the losses invade our lives.
Our health deteriorates, our eyesight may decrease, our loved ones may pass on, our stamina isn’t what it used to be, our wealth may diminish, our homes seem to shrink as we downsize, and our memory may slip. “Losing” is just a natural part of life’s journey.
We cannot let these losses define us. We need to be able to accept what life brings us with grace, gratitude, and gracious goodness.
Our lives work in synchronistic fashion with all events melting together creating your life’s mission. God gives us enough “wins” for happiness and enough “loss” for growth. Try to see how your life fits together as a whole.
Creating a flow chart to describe the connections and influences can help. A flow chart can visually depict the sequential steps in the process of your life.
- Step 1: Begin by drawing boxes in a horizontal line filling them with the major, life altering occurrences. These boxes will depict the meaningful experiences in your life.
- Step 2: Draw the connecting arrows showing how one incident leads to the next. These connections demonstrate the dependency of the flow of life.
- Step 3: See the pivotal points and how they hinge on one another. They line you up to where you are today.
For me, a flow chart has helped to reinterpret prior events in my life. I could dismiss my seven years in the convent as wasted time, a huge loss of fruitless years, or see that so-called loss as giving me the experience of suffering guilt, enabling me to help others.
In the bigger picture of my life, those years are important as they set me up to help others struggling with guilt. Seeing the Bigger Picture, including the lessons learned, helps with accepting the setbacks that I go through.
On your flow chart, look for silver linings. See the good in everything and everyone. Observe the harmony of events, remaining in a conscious state of acceptance. Only seeing the positive may not be rational or logical, but remember this is a lesson of acceptance for your unseen, irrational, and illogical soul.
Trace the synchronicity. Put on your hindsight glasses to discover how things have all come together for the best in the past. You might have thought that things couldn’t have been worse, but somehow you managed to get through them. That means you are batting 1000. Keep that uplifting attitude with grace, gratitude, and gracious goodness.
What to do you to to help accept life’s “losses”?
