My friends, this is what nobody tells you about grief and loss. If you've lost friends and family members, this will help you a lot to make the process easier. I have experienced a good bit of grief and loss already in my life, and I've gotten way better at not only dealing with it, but at letting it make me better, letting the lessons from grief and loss help my life be filled with love. If you want to stop grieving and get back to love in your life, this is for you. What have I personally experienced with grief and loss? I'll share my journey, because that shows you by what I actually do and gives you some inspiration for yourself.
The First Losses
The first big loss I had in my life was my grandfather. He died when I was 10. I felt that one kind of strangely. It just would bother me at various times that my grandfather had passed. What was he doing? What was it like being in eternity? It dug up all these deep questions I didn't want to answer. I'd find myself often just laying in my bed screaming, or standing in the shower terrified. It was an uncomfortable experience, to say the least.
The toughest loss I have ever experienced in my life was my father dying 10 years ago, in 2014. He was sick for about a year or two before he passed. My father had raised me. My mother had a career in the military, and my father was a stay-at-home dad who raised my brother and I while my mom worked. He was one of the two people I was closest with, along with my wife. Losing him was a massive loss. I was also close with my mother and my brother, but really, my main two people in my life were my wife and my father.
Losing my father, I felt so much self-pity. At the time, I would have told you it was grief and sadness. But really, it was self-pity. It was about what am I going to do without my father? Poor me. I don't deserve to be losing my father. I remember seeing a man who was probably 20 years older than me at the time going to bury his own father, and I felt jealousy. Like, that's nice, he gets so much more time with his dad than I do with mine.
The Hole My Drinking Couldn't Cover
What then happened when my dad actually died is that I felt this massive hole and pain in my life that my alcoholism couldn't even cover up anymore. It hurt so much that my drinking started to quickly escalate. I realized that I was in danger of joining my father quite prematurely. So I got desperate to live. I prayed to do anything to stay sober, because I realized that if I wouldn't drink, I would have a chance. Then I ended up going to Alcoholics Anonymous and finding a bunch of father and grandfather figures there.
This massive hole I had in my life when my dad died, and still from when my grandfather died, these men in Alcoholics Anonymous filled those holes. They were like fathers and grandfathers to me. I learned things from them that my father was not equipped to teach me, but that other fathers and grandfathers perhaps taught their own children. Things like how to admit when you are afraid and ask for help, instead of putting on this armor and acting tough and lashing out. I found that really helpful for my growth and maturity.
Who I Really Am Is Space to Love
Then one of my father-slash-grandfather figures in Alcoholics Anonymous, who I was very close to, died when I was about two years sober. I experienced the whole loss and grief process all over again. And that's when I had something amazing happen. My father had died, and then this man, Ty, had taken up a lot of the space my father had previously filled. When Ty died, I felt that same sense of grief and loss. And I realized, wow, who I really am is the space to love. I have all this space in my life that I can fill up with people and animals and hobbies and whatever. Who I really am is space to love. Everybody who's in my life takes up space, and when they leave, all I need to do to feel better is let new people or animals or nature, whatever you love, fill that space again.
From there, I have had a very smooth journey with grief and loss, because my life is very full now. For better or worse, somebody needs to leave in order for me to have room for anybody new. Lots of friends and people I've been close to in Alcoholics Anonymous have passed since I got sober, in the last almost 10 years now. And if you want to get better at something, practice will help you get better. With so many people in my life coming and going, it has helped me get used to and really know on the deepest level that who I am, I am love. You can think of life, of who I am, like a painting or a puzzle. When one piece or a few pieces fall out, you put some new ones in there, and it makes it all better.
The Choice Not to Suffer
The opposite of doing that is what I saw recently with a lady I talked to in an AA meeting. Her dog died. She'd had the dog for 16 years, and she's just been suffering and wallowing in this grief over the dog. I told her, from my point of view, all you need to do is fill your life with more people and perhaps more animals to love. If you refuse to fill your life with new people and new animals to love, then in my experience you are choosing to continue needlessly suffering and feeling bad. A lot of us do this in our lives, and this is what nobody tells you: nobody tells you that if you continue to wallow and suffer and feel bad for yourself, you're generating all of these bad feelings, and there's a choice not to.
I told this lady that, and she cried a little bit, but she cried because she looked like she got some hope in her life. She was saying that it was a struggle just for her to get up and feel okay. And I said, you can have it better than that. Get out there and love other people. If you really miss your dog, get another one. She said, well, I can't possibly go through the pain again. If you want my honest take, it's worth the pain. It is worth the pain of life. The pain of loss will go away if you let that space be filled.
Love Is Always in Your Own Heart
I had a friend, one of my best friends in college, recently pass. He was born six months after I was. I have thought of him and thought about how much I've loved him, and it has not been difficult at all with him passing. I have not suffered any of this grieving and loss that you would picture, because I've thought about how much I loved him, and I know that somebody dying is just a continuation of an infinite journey. This friend appeared to me in a bunch of dreams. I even made a joke about him dying in one of the dreams, which I thought was funny.
The person that I loved will always be with me. Everyone I have loved is always in my own heart. I tell my kids that. The love you have for me will always be there. It doesn't matter whether this body is around or not, the love you have is always in you. What hurts is refusing to open your own heart and give that love out. That's where the real pain is.
Now, yes, when someone passes suddenly or unexpectedly, or is sick and on their way to passing, sure, there can be what I would call the pain of acceptance, of going from, okay, I love this person and they're here in my life, to, they're gone. But that can happen in an incredibly short period of time. When my mother fell off her horse in 2015, just a year after my father died, we didn't know if my mother was going to live or not. She fell and had a bad fall, and was being airlifted to the hospital. I had perhaps five or ten minutes of maximum, scream-crying. And then after that, I got up. Okay, my mother might live, she might die, and it's okay. I am fine. If my mother dies, I'll have new mother figures in my life, and I will love them just the same as I've loved my mother, and the love for my mother will remain a constant throughout the rest of my life.
What Makes This Life Interesting
I love seeing people who are able to accept the nature of this kind of very temporary reality. It would be miserable if everyone was born and had a guaranteed 70, 90, 100, or 1,000 years to live. It'd be boring. One thing that makes this life interesting is that you don't know how long you will have, and that to me is what gives the desire to treasure the people we have around us. I love my kids that much more because I know I don't have any guaranteed amount of time with them here. I know lots of parents who've lost their children and they've stayed sober through it. Yes, they said it was painful, but it didn't ruin their entire life. In fact, they've learned to have lots more love, lots more compassion, and to be out there to serve others, to be a parent to other children, to show up more for the kids they still have, or to be there in Alcoholics Anonymous and essentially raise other people's kids as a sponsor.
What nobody tells you about grief and loss is that you accept, perhaps, a very short amount of what you might think of as required pain, or pain of change, of switching things around in the brain. Aside from that, you don't have to suffer through grief and loss. If someone has died that you've really loved, whether it's a person, a pet, a spouse, or a child, it is possible to be feeling full of joy and love almost immediately. In my experience, the five stages of grief are absolute garbage. You can go almost instantly straight to acceptance. You do not have to suffer because someone in your life has left. I know, because I've been through this process a bunch of times, and I have applied this to some of the closest people in my life. I still have my wife and my kids, and I have the intention that if I lost my wife, I'd find another one, and if I lost my kids, I'd find more kids to parent and to love, because that's what we can do here. The bad things that happen in life, the silver lining is that they give us a chance to help each other.
Get back out there and love again
I remember when I had a girlfriend in college that I thought I was going to marry, and she cheated on me and dumped me. I was miserable for a while. I was obsessed with self harm and I couldn't think of what else to do. Then everybody gave me the simple advice: why don't you date someone else? And as soon as I started dating other people, that ex didn't matter at all anymore. In fact, I found myself thinking, I'm glad she left, because I was bored with her and I'm really enjoying getting to be with all these new girls. Now I look back and think, thank God she left me, and thank God I didn't go on and on suffering and instead got back out there. So if you've lost somebody you love, get out there and love some more.
And if you don't know where to go, ask other people for advice and pray for guidance. I've watched people stay stuck in that empty space. My mother has never filled the space that my dad took up, and she's suffered so much because she's chosen not to fill it. She's filled some of it by moving next door to me, but she still has this huge unfilled space in her life. I've invited her many times. Mom, get out there and date someone else. Go find some new people and some new friends. From my point of view, her suffering is a choice.
Suffering is optional
That is the miracle: when you realize you don't have to suffer. Yes, you may feel a bit of pain for a moment, but after that it's optional. I'm so grateful for all the people who loved me and filled that space. When my dad had died and I was lying at home alone in miserable suffering, all I knew was that I needed to take better care of myself. In my experience, if you're drinking and using substances and addictive behaviors to cope with grief and loss, this is in no case what the person or pet who left would want you to do. What they would always want you to do is get out there and love someone else.
I've told my wife that if I passed, I would love for her to get out there and find another man she could love. She wouldn't be doing me any service by suffering and wailing over how I'm gone, when there are all kinds of men out there who could use her love. If she weren't giving it to me, she should be giving it to someone, because it's really good.
What I did when I didn't know what to do was pray: God, please, I'll do anything to get sober. And if you're struggling in grief and loss and you've also got other addictions, a lot of times getting help with those very addictions is a path to connecting with other people. There are other people who are suffering just like you are, and you can fill the space with each other. There are other men in this area who are isolating at home because they've lost their wives. My mom's sitting at home missing my dad and suffering alone, and these men are suffering and missing their wives at home. To me it's simple: y'all both need to get out of your houses, help each other, and experience love. Nothing good is happening by sitting home and feeling bad about life. This kind of connection is exactly why I built a place for people to gather and support one another, and you're always welcome to join the Jerry Banfield Family and find that company.
Grief can prove you are infinite love
This life is very fair. All of us come from nothing, and all of us get completely annihilated. That is utterly fair. What happens in between is almost meaningless to some degree. So I know that in grief it's tempting to say, it's not fair, I don't deserve this. But I remember choosing to incarnate here when I had no body. I had no stake in the game. I chose to come in here, and that's how this works. I've met other people who've remembered incarnating here as well. If you want to remember that, in my experience it will also help you greatly deal with grief.
I've had a continuing relationship with my father directly, through our mind connection. Once you start loving other people, and letting go of grief over one person so that more people can fill your life, you realize that the more people you lose, the richer your life actually gets. I still have the love for my father. I still have the love for Ty and all the men who were father figures. All the ones who've passed, I still love them, and I love all the new ones who are physically present in my life. I feel like the more people I love, the more rich I become spiritually. The more people who die and clear space out, the more I still love them while new people keep coming in.
Grief and loss can be proof that you are infinite love and abundance. When you remember who you are, life is truly beautiful. I hope this was really helpful for you, and I hope you get out there and love and enjoy life instead of staying stuck in grief and misery. If you want to keep walking through this with me, I share more of these reflections in my Life playlist. I love you. You're awesome. I hope you have a wonderful life and fill it with love.