What are you most afraid of losing?
Your home? Your job? Your money? Your health? Your family? The people you love?
Or perhaps it’s something less tangible. Your reputation, your place in society, the respect of others, or the life you’ve worked so hard to build.
We spend so much of our lives holding on, don’t we?
We accumulate possessions, relationships, achievements and identities. We work hard to acquire them, harder still to protect them, and spend an extraordinary amount of time worrying about what might happen if they’re taken away.
And somewhere along the way, we become prisoners of the very things we’re afraid to lose.
I know something about this because, at various points in my life, I’ve lost just about EVERYTHING.
Not voluntarily, I hasten to add!
I’ve lost my home, my security, relationships, the support of people I thought would always be there, and perhaps most painfully, my sense of belonging.
I’ve been so unwell, I’ve been bedbound for months and needed major surgery. I remember what it feels like to believe your body has given up you.
I’ve known what it feels like to have the ground disappear beneath my feet, to be judged, rejected, alienated and left wondering how on earth I would get through another day.
And sometimes the most painful losses aren’t material at all. They’re the people who are still alive but no longer in your life. The relationships you thought were unconditional. The love you believed could never be taken away.
I won’t romanticise any of it. There’s nothing particularly blissful about being frightened, helpless or alone. And I certainly wouldn’t recommend losing everything as a shortcut to enlightenment!
But somewhere along the way, something changed.
I survived.
The things I’d been so terrified of losing were gone, yet here I was. Still breathing. Still capable of laughing, loving and finding beauty in the world.
And slowly, those fears began to lose their hold on me.
But the greatest transformation came not from what I had lost, but from what I began to discover.
The beauty of becoming empty
There’s something my guru, Om Swami, has spoken about that has stayed with me.
On the spiritual path, there may come a time when we find ourselves stripped of everything we once held dear. The things we believed defined us, gave us security, made us feel loved, accepted or important, can all fall away.
And when there’s nothing left to hold on to, we’re left with something we may have spent our entire lives avoiding.
Emptiness.
It can be a frightening place. Without all those familiar things, who are we? What remains?
But perhaps there’s something rather beautiful about becoming empty.
Because how can we be filled with all the things we want to attract, when we’re already so full of everything else?
Full of our fears, expectations, attachments, desires and endless ideas about how life should be.
Perhaps the emptying isn’t simply about losing what we have, but about releasing our need to possess, control and hold on to it.
And perhaps that’s where true freedom begins.
As the things I’d clung to fell away, something else began to grow in the space they left behind.
Something that no possession, reputation or worldly achievement could ever have given me.
Love.
Now, I can almost hear a few of you groaning. “Oh, here we go! Faith, God, Love and all that … not my cuppa cha, thank you very much!”
Fair enough. If you don’t believe in God or anything of the sort, feel free to skip to the little something I have for you at the end of this post.
And if you ever feel like coming back to read the rest, it’ll still be here.
The love that changes everything
As I began to empty myself of the things I’d clung to, I discovered a love that changed the way I see life.
For me, that love is centred on the Divine, whom I worship through the many forms of God, the Mother Goddess and my beloved Guru. My heart turns towards them with such tenderness, gratitude and love, and also a little cheekiness! Well, quite a lot of cheekiness, actually. 😄
There is something extraordinarily beautiful about bhakti, the path of devotion.
To love simply for the sake of loving. To remember the Divine with such affection that your heart seems almost too small to contain it.
To ask for nothing.
Not for wealth, success, recognition or even an easier life.
Just to love.
And the more you cultivate that love, the more it begins to fill you.
In my own experience, when the mind becomes truly quiet, it fills with love, and vice versa.
A love so profound and complete that it’s difficult to describe. It brings with it an extraordinary sense of peace, safety and security, as though there’s nothing you need to acquire, achieve or prove.
And suddenly, so many things that once seemed terribly important begin to lose their significance.
What does it matter what someone thinks of you? Whether they approve of your choices, believe your story or understand the life you’ve lived?
What does it matter what you own, what you’ve achieved, or where you stand in society?
You are loved. You are held. You are part of something infinitely greater than all these passing concerns.
And that is enough.
There is such freedom in this love. Not because the world suddenly becomes perfect or our difficulties disappear, but because our peace no longer depends entirely upon what happens around us.
We can simply rest in the love of the Divine.
When love begins to overflow
And something rather wonderful happens when you cultivate this devotion.
The love doesn’t have to be confined to a form or an abstract God.
It begins to overflow into everything.
You start to recognise the same Divine presence in the people around you. In strangers, in animals, in the birds and trees, in the smallest and most ordinary moments of life.
Even in those who have hurt you.
This, for me, has been one of the most beautiful transformations of all.
You begin to see beyond people’s behaviour, beyond their anger, judgements, prejudices and unkindness.
You see another soul.
A soul carrying its own history, conditioning, fears, disappointments, wounds and perhaps traumas. Layers upon layers of experiences that have shaped the person standing before you.
And somewhere beneath all of that, you recognise the same Divine presence that you love so deeply.
How can I love the Divine with all my heart and not recognise that same Divinity in others?
Of course, this doesn’t mean accepting mistreatment or allowing people to cause us harm. We can love someone and still maintain our boundaries. We can forgive without returning to situations that hurt us.
But we needn’t carry hatred or bitterness.
We can recognise that others, too, are finding their way through this sometimes bewildering experience of being human.
And perhaps, instead of asking why someone doesn’t love or understand us, we can simply love them, quietly, without needing anything in return.
Not always easy, I know!
But what a beautiful way to live.
Nothing was ever ours
There is another realisation that brings me tremendous peace.
Nothing really belongs to us.
Not our homes, our possessions, our achievements or even the people we love.
Our parents, children, partners and friends may share our lives, sometimes for decades, sometimes for only a fleeting moment. We can cherish them, care for them and love them with everything we have.
But they are not ours to possess.
They, too, belong to the Divine.
Everything comes from the Divine, exists within the Divine and ultimately returns to the Divine.
We are simply passing through, blessed with the opportunity to experience this beautiful, complicated, sometimes heartbreaking world.
To breathe. To laugh. To love. To learn.
To discover our purpose, if we haven’t found it already.
And perhaps, while we’re here, to make life a little easier for another living being.
Sometimes that means helping someone through a difficult time. Sometimes it’s a listening ear, a warm meal, a little music or a good laugh.
We don’t have to do anything extraordinary.
A small act of kindness, a moment of genuine affection, a smile offered to someone who desperately needs one — these, too, can become expressions of our love for the Divine.
When we begin to see God in everyone, every opportunity to love becomes an opportunity to worship.
What have we really got to lose?
I sometimes look back at the person I once was. At everything she went through, everything she lost and all the things she thought she would never survive.
I wish I could tell her that one day she would find a peace that didn’t depend on her circumstances.
That she would laugh again. Love again. Find joy in the simplest things.
I wouldn’t tell her that her suffering was deserved, or that losing everything was the only way to find God.
But I would tell her not to be so afraid.
That one day, she would discover a love so complete that the things she’d once been terrified of losing would no longer have the same power over her.
Not to spend her precious life desperately holding on to things that were never hers to keep.
And perhaps most importantly, I would tell her to turn towards God.
To love the Divine with all her heart, without bargaining, without conditions, without asking for anything in return.
Because there is something extraordinary about giving your heart to the Divine.
The more love you give, the more you seem to have.
The more you surrender, the freer you become.
Perhaps the greatest freedom of all is to live in this world, to love its people and enjoy its many gifts, without being imprisoned by the fear of losing them.
To hold everything gently, knowing that nothing was ever really ours.
And to discover that when the heart is filled with love for the Divine, there is no fear and there is no longer anything missing.
There is nothing to lose, because in Divine Love, no matter what the circumstance, you realise you already have everything.
But, but, but, I hear you say. What if you don’t believe in God or a Higher Power and you’re shackled by your fears and want to be free of them?
Or, what if one more thing you’ve lost is your faith in God or belief in anything? Ah, now that’s one for next time!
For now, do what I did.
Start calling out for the Truth.
Do it sincerely, every day, with every ounce of your being, in whatever way resonates with you. And most importantly, never give up.
One day, the Universe WILL answer.
Try it.
What have you got to lose? 😉