9: You Can Continue to Hurt or You Can Choose to Grow – a lesson learned from my cat.

Sometimes the days we expect to be the most joyful, end up being the most painful. The day this podcast launched, our family cat passed away.

He’d been sick for quite awhile with what we thought was just an upper respiratory infection that antibiotics were almost working to clear, but it turned out to be Feline Viral Leukemia that was causing him to get sick repeatedly. It didn’t come as a surprise when he went, but how much it hurt to lose him was still a shocking amount.

When I found him gone, I cried. I realized I cried because I’d been holding onto so much hope that he’d heal. I hoped he’d get better and get back to his old self again. I cried because a sliver of my hope had died with him.

We have to accept that death is inevitable, we’ll lose the ones we love eventually. The challenge is to continue to love deeply despite the fear of loss. When they’re gone it’s going to hurt – either because you loved them so much, or because you regret not getting closer.

I’ve realized a pattern in my own life, when I love something I tend to push it away because I’m afraid of losing it. Or I want something real bad, so I self sabotage because I’m afraid to fail and not get it. What if I lose?

Let’s look at those thoughts coming up. Become mindful of these thoughts: does it even make sense – to self sabotage so you fail on purpose instead of failing on accident?

This pattern came up recently in my marriage, too. I’m so lucky my husband is ride or die for me. He’s stuck by me through so much that he didn’t understand with my mental illness struggles over the years. I’ve sabotaged my marriage on a number of occasions, and that man, that man stuck by me and waited for me to come around and get my senses in working order. When things don’t work out, I tend to run away. I’m so glad he’s not that type.

We can’t keep people at a distance because we’re afraid to lose them. Eventually we do lose them. The question is, will you mourn because you loved them so much, or mourn because you never gave it a chance?

“If you focus on the hurt, you’ll continue to suffer. If you focus on the lesson, you’ll continue to grow.”

Even in your grief, in the tragedy, in the upsets and the pain – we have to keep moving forward, we have to keep looking for the light, because it’s the only way to overcome the darkness.