The ability to deal with loss is an important issue to discuss and bring out as a piece of one’s health journey. Dealing with loss, rather than denying it, can improve our health. We all experience loss as we grow up—loss of our childhood dreams or innocence, loss of a beloved pet, loss of a tree we loved, loss of a parent or sibling and more. These are natural stages in the ebb and flow of life.

In America, we hide death away through medical interventions or various processes that keep us away from loss. Aside from those who raise animals for food, most of us don’t see much death. Our food is packaged, plastic wrapped, processed into boxes of neat microwaveable pouches. Our bodies are whisked away, cremated, buried.

How can we honor these changes? How are we taught to handle these losses with sacred grace and intention? Native trainings teach us that everyday there are little deaths as well—times or events that cause us to look at our lives differently, a time for reflection and reframing. With death there is rebirth, the opportunity to make ourselves anew in light of the changes we experience and feel.

It is in considering these rough times as choice points that we can give ourselves space to breathe, relax, reflect and decide anew what we want to do with the rest of our beautiful lives. Yes, we hurt; yes, our hearts crack open again and again, and in doing so we have a chance to knit our new self back together—stronger, wiser, more flexible—as we gently love ourselves back to wholeness once again.

DeeAnn G. Saber is a Naturopathic Doctor at Transformational Medicine, PLLC. Connect at 520-209-1755, [email protected] and TransformationalMedicinePLLC.com. See ad, page 3.