Journaling Prompts
Losing a Loved One:
There is probably nothing that strikes more fear into the heart of most people that the thought of losing someone they love. We live in a world of the tangible, the immediate. Being separated by death is the ultimate in aloneness and loss. What experiences have you had with death and dying? Whom have you lost, when, and what impact did it have on you? Did your age or life cycle stage at the time make a difference? How did you make peace with the loss, or if you haven't, why do you that that's the case? Did you experience the traditional stages of grief, and in what order? How do you comfort others who have experiences a tragic loss?
Loss of a Dream:
So much of childhood is focused on the future and on fantasy - the white knight coming to rescue you, the dreams that will be fulfilled. What did you dream of as a child and which of those dreams were fulfilled. Were those dreams fulfilled in the ways you expected? If you had dreams that did not come to fruition (and who hasn't!) what are those dreams and how do you cope with the loss of hope, even more so than the loss of the actual experience you desired? Has it changed the way that you now dream about your future? Are you less hopeful? Do you still dream about a future that seems far away?
Healing Tears:
What methods do you use to relieve yourself from the difficulties of life? For some people, a good cry is the way to open the pressure valve. How often do you cry, and when you do, does it bring you some comfort and release? Are you open enough to cry in front of others, or do you hide your deeper emotions? How did your parents treat crying when you were a child - were you chastised and told to 'buck up', or were you allowed to express yourself?
What You Gain:
Every loss typically has a gain associated with it. What great steps, achievements and gains have you made in your life, and how often were those connected to an initial loss? What new things have you learned about yourself? What do you have now that you didn't have when you were younger? Did the passage of time or your hard work bring you more of what you want in your life?
Quotes
Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live. Norman Cousins
Loss is nothing else but change, and change is Nature's delight. Marcus Aurelius
Through zeal, knowledge is gotten; through lack of zeal, knowledge is lost; let a man who knows the double path of gain and loss thus place himself that knowledge may grow. Buddha
Sometimes we lose friends for whose loss our regret is greater than our grief, and others for whom our grief is greater than our regret. François de la Rochefoucauld
What looks like a loss may be the very event which is subsequently responsible for helping to produce the major achievement of your life. Srully Blotnick
The greatest danger, that of losing one's own self, may pass off quietly as if it were nothing; every other loss, that of an arm, a leg, five dollars, a wife, etc., is sure to be noticed. Soren Kierkegaard
Riches do not exhilarate us so much with their possession as they torment us with their loss. Epicurus
Gain and loss, birth and death are in the hands of God. Sri Sathya Sai Baba
The risk of love is loss, and the price of loss is grief - but the pain of grief is only a shadow when compared with the pain of never risking love. Hilary Stanton Zunin
Gain cannot be made without some other person's loss. Publilius Syrus
I have learned that some of the nicest people you’ll ever meet are those who have suffered a traumatic event or loss. I admire them for their strength, but most especially for their life gratitude - a gift often taken for granted by the average person in society. Sasha Azevedo
No loss by flood and lightening, no destruction of cities and temples by the hostile forces of nature, has deprived man of so many noble lives and impulses as those which his intolerance has destroyed. Helen Keller
A wife is a gift bestowed upon man to reconcile him to the loss of paradise. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Power does not corrupt. Fear corrupts... perhaps the fear of a loss of power. John Steinbeck
The garden is growth and change and that means loss as well as constant new treasures to make up for a few disasters. May Sarton
Time by minutes slips away, first the hour, then the day, small the daily loss appears, yet soon it amounts to years. Ronald Tierney
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight. Kahlil Gibran
We must embrace pain and burn it as fuel for our journey. Kenji Miyazawa
Oh heart, if one should say to you that the soul perishes like the body, answer that the flower withers, but the seed remains. Kahlil Gibran
He who has gone, so we but cherish his memory, abides with us, more potent, nay, more present than the living man. Antoine de Saint-Exupery
What we learned here is love tastes bitter when it’s gone. Rob Thomas
Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak whispers the o'er-fraught heart and bids it break. William Shakespeare
Even hundredfold grief is divisible by love. Jareb Teague
If you're going through hell, keep going. Winston Churchill
We acquire the strength we have overcome. Ralph Waldo Emerson
Time is a physician that heals every grief. Diphilus
The deep pain that is felt at the death of every friendly soul arises from the feeling that there is in every individual something which is inexpressible, peculiar to him alone, and is, therefore, absolutely and irretrievably lost. Arthur Schopenhauer
You can clutch the past so tightly to your chest that it leaves your arms too full to embrace the present. Jan Glidewell
The sorrow which has no vent in tears may make other organs weep. Henry Maudsley
There is no grief like the grief that does not speak. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
There is no pain so great as the memory of joy in present grief. Aeschylus
He that conceals his grief finds no remedy for it. Turkish Proverb
Grief makes one hour ten. William Shakespeare
Friendship doubles our joy and divides our grief. Swedish Proverb
Waste not fresh tears over old griefs. Euripides
I measure every grief I meet with narrow, probing eyes - I wonder if it weighs like mine - or has an easier size. Emily Dickinson
The cure for grief is motion. Elbert Hubbard
In youth one has tears without grief; in age, griefs without tears. Joseph Roux
Grief is the price we pay for love. Elizabeth II
Seeing death as the end of life is like seeing the horizon as the end of the ocean. David Searls
Suppressed grief suffocates, it rages within the breast, and is forced to multiply its strength. Ovid
Tears are the silent language of grief. Voltaire
Oh, my friend, it's not what they take away from you that counts. It's what you do with what you have left. William Cowper
‘Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have lost at all. Samuel Butler
When wealth is lost, nothing is lost; when health is lost, something is lost; when character is lost, all is lost. German Motto
Only those who avoid love can avoid grief. The point is to learn from grief and remain vulnerable to love. John Brantner
Praising what is lost makes the remembrance dear. William Shakespeare
Music
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Enjoy and dig deep...
Love,
Rachel
