Not lost, just hidden from view

When loss strikes what we really want is to lose the feeling of loss.

The moment a loss happens, it feels permanent. It hits like a brick and tells you something’s gone forever.

But what loss also does is give us the chance to discover something new - a seed of growth that turns loss into gain.

My son recently learned this firsthand after an overzealous barber gave him a haircut that was way shorter than he wanted. He was devastated. His long hair was part of his identity, and now it was gone.

His grief was real, there was shock, anger, depression all colliding at once. His feelings of loss overwhelmed his ability to see beyond that which was gone. His attachment to what was cut from him was the source of his pain.

But then something shifted. When I pointed out that shorter hair can make muscles on a guy stand out more, his devastation turned into a grin.

This “loss” wasn’t really a total loss—it just needed a different lens to see it though.

Not all losses are like a bad haircut. And it’s hard to think this way in the middle of processing grief. But the door is always there to open and discover what seeds of growth are waiting for us.

When we reframe what we see, we reclaim our power to move forward. Loss isn’t final. It’s just a moment asking you to adjust your perspective.

If you look closer, shift the angle, you might find that what you thought was taken from you is really the start of something better.