There is another momentous power within loss. It does not announce itself with fanfare, but once we recognize it, our lives are transformed. 

Loss carries an immense power. It can undo us, weaken us, stab us, and at times make life feel almost unbearable. And yet, loss also holds another kind of power… the power to shape strengths within us, that we might never have known otherwise… strengths that become part of who we are.

Our body, even as it breaks under loss, is learning how to endure more life than it ever has before.

The heart feeds on love, faith, and hope. Hope engenders the ability to anticipate the future. Indeed, it helps us realize that there will be a future. If there is a future, hope helps us trust that we will show up for it. On the Enneagram of Soul, hope activates Sacred Creativity. Yes, paradoxically, loss and grief have their own way of evoking hope by stirring creativity in our hearts. In the act of creating, we find meaning and express it. When we dream, wonder, envision, and put our ideas into motion, we are full of life… we do not have the time or interest for self-pity or emotional paralysis. Hope empowers us. 

Our hearts carry a full range of emotions, some are directly experienced and others are pushed back or repressed. But emotions range from profound sadness, such as that experienced during the death of a loved one, all the way to the ecstasy experienced when our child is born. We keep all emotions in our hearts. But when loss floods our heart with unending grief, fear, anxiety, deprivation, uncertainty, and even meaninglessness, it can feel like a stab, like something ripped from our heart— or like our heart is darkened, or empty.

The mind that suffers the deepest grief is also the mind that that same grief can greatly empower.