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January 2009 netPsychologist.com Newsletter
Tools and Tips For Success In Love and Loss
  First the part about Love;
Last month, Captain Chesley Sullenberger safely landed a commercial airliner full of people on the Hudson River. And he did it with neither engine running. No power.

I've heard Captain Sullenberger and many others discussing this heroic feat. Not once have I heard it said that he was able to save lives simply because he loved flying. To be sure, this pilot is a veteran flyer and I doubt he has stuck with flying only because he needed to make a living. He probably does love flying.

But the love of flying is not what gets the credit for this man's ability to safely land a disable jet on water. Neither is sheer luck given the credit. Most people say it was Captain Sullenberger's skill.

Well, of course it took skill. Dah! It takes skill to fly any airplane, let alone one under the conditions Captain Sullenbereger found himself. We accept and expect skill for doing technical things. But when it comes to human interactions, such as significant relationships, parenting, managing people, overcoming additive illnesses or healthy sex, we act as though "love is enough" for success. I have concluded love is never enough to sustain success in anything humans do with each other. It takes skill.

Love helps, but training, learning, guidance and lots of ongoing practice makes the difference between safe landings and painful, costly crashes.

Now, The Part About Living With Loss
    Is the loss of money the most difficult kind of loss for Americans? puppy
CNN now does a segment called "Living With Loss". People have been dying and divorcing and being abandoned steadily for years, but I haven't seen this feature about loss on the CNN news channels until people have recently begun to loose money. The implication is that money loss is the only really important kind of loss that CNN thinks needs their deliberate and focused efforts to help us cope with.

Loss is loss, what ever the kind and it takes its toll. It also gives its gifts. Here are a few that come to my mind:

  • challenges our ideas of who we think we are
  • changes the stories we had about our future
  • challenges our beliefs about what we deserve and are entitled to
  • offers opportunities to develop adaptive skills and capacities
  • creates windows of opportunity
  • changes the rhythms of our life
  • slows us down enough to read the signs and signals in our life and connect better with our surroundings, our globe.

 

Loss is a necessary fact of life. A former professor of mine would say in times like these, "Enjoy the melancholy."

Cheers through the tears!

 
 
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