How do you start over when you've lost everything?- Part I

Why Should You Listen To Me?

I woke up a month before my 45th birthday suddenly without an identity. My mother had just passed away a few days before and the shock had finally ebbed. My own daughter was having a hard time dealing with her grandmother’s demise and had taken off to find her own peace and the love of my life at the time had found someone else, so there I was, alone.

I was suddenly no one’s daughter, no one’s mother, unemployed, homeless (I’d left a business, a relationship and a home to take care of my mother her last 6 months) and for some reason known only to God and my mother, I’d been written out of the will and evicted from her home. What was I to do? The roles I had known for so many years were gone in the space of a breath. My future, as I had planned it, was gone. What now?

I started through the same process I now share with you. I disconnected my Oughta-Pilot and started to regain control of my life. Now my life is one of my own creation, changeable and malleable as I choose. I’m on my way to living the life I dream of and you can be, too!

Falling On Your Face Is One Way To Know Which End Is Up

When we were young and learning to walk, figuring out how to make those leg things work the way we wanted them to was always a challenge. The first thing we had to do was adjust to using them a different way. Once that part was more or less stable, we had to get used to the new altitude and changes in the way everything looked. No longer were our fields of view limited to ankles and the bottom side of the coffee table. Now we were up above the edge and entranced by all the things on top of it. We reached for something that caught our attention, and had to let go the desperate grasp we had on the edge of the couch for support and, wouldn’t you know it, down we’d go, plop on our bottoms since we were still working on that elusive standing without help thing. At first the sudden change in position scared us and made us cry, but when we figured out it wouldn’t kill us, we tried it again and again till we got it right.

As adults, there’s still a lot of that same thing going on. The process is basically the same only metaphoric this time. We’re not trying to find our physical legs, we’re trying to find our daily legs. It’s a well-known fact that we tend to chase new ideas and concepts and have all the focus of someone with severe ADD. Just about the time we think we’re focusing all our energies on the pursuit of our chosen path, a bunny rabbit bounces across it and we just have to see where it goes. So, we let go of our support to chase it and wind up sitting down surprisingly fast and hard.

The difference is in how we react to perceived failure. When some people talk about losing everything, “everything” is very subjective. Especially lately, I’ve heard executives talking about having lost everything and meaning they’ve lost their job, and only have a couple of million in the bank. When I talk about losing it all, I mean ALL OF IT; home, job, health, family, every last bit till all you have is what you were born with (and if you’re lucky, the clothes on your back.) I’ve lost everything four times in my life and none of those times were through my own efforts. Sh—tuff happens.
Stages

The first thing you experience is shock and sadness. You just can’t believe your life as you planned it is not going to happen. You have no foreseeable future, no options and no support. Or so you think. But you need to sit with the grief and the raw emotion that happens if you want to overcome it. Be with it and experience it all. Then, let it go. The next phase is assessing and reassessing what you do have to work with. Take inventory of what is at hand (no matter how little there is). In counting your blessings, you begin to see a glimmer of light. The last time I lost it all, my total physical assets were the clothes on my back, my driver’s license, a toothbrush, a candy bar, 37 pennies and a pen. That was all, but it was enough because I also had my experience, my knowledge, my innate strengths and skills. AND, I had rebuilt my life before, I could do it again.

The third phase is to make a plan using what you have. Figure out the immediate needs – shelter, food, hygiene – and start seeking a way to meet those needs on a basic level. Once those are handled, you have the space to work on the bigger plan. Take it a step at a time and you’ll make it.