How Loss Can Become Protection
The Art of Re-Framing
Almost ten years ago, we had a conversation on the Happier podcast that, despite the fact that it occurred so many years ago, listeners continue to talk about to this day—someone mentioned it to me just this week, in fact. So in case you’ve missed this story, I wanted to share it here.
Way back in episode 78, in the “Listener Question” segment, Allison asked the following question:
I recently lost my engagement ring that I had been wearing for 7 years. I never take it off, and I just happened to notice one afternoon that it was not there. I have frantically retraced my steps and searched my office and home trying to find this ring to no avail. I’m surprised at how upset it made me because I usually am not sentimental about objects. But for this particular ring, my husband had saved for years in graduate school to buy it. And like I said, I never take it off. So unfortunately my insurance on the ring lapsed while we moved to Florida, and not only that, we are not in a financial position to be able to replace it if I wanted to do that at this time. So my question for you is: How do you bounce back from an experience like that, that is totally unexpected with something that is not really replaceable?
So Allison had lost this ring, which was very precious to her, and her question was, “How can I recover from this loss?”
In episode 82, we shared a suggestion from the listener Yuri. It is this answer that has made such an impression on people.
Yuri wrote:
My friend who is a foreign correspondent used to have a solitary diamond ring she bought herself. She always wore the ring wherever her assignments took her for several, maybe ten, years.
One day she realized that she was missing her ring when she was reporting abroad. She was very sad because it had the sentimental value. She felt as if she had lost a war buddy. (Her assignments included many war torn countries and disaster areas in the world.) Then she thought…maybe the ring sacrificed itself in order to protect her from something bad.
In our culture, Japanese sometimes believe things can take your place in the event of a bad happening, such as an accident. It’s totally a myth, but it is not too difficult to think of losing thing that way for us. Maybe the listener who lost her wedding ring can think that her precious ring protected her from bad things. As Gretchen said, we can’t change what happened, but we can change how we regard that event.
It’s fascinating to me that this idea—that a beloved possession could choose to sacrifice itself to protect its owner from disaster or sorrow—has clearly made such a deep, memorable impression on listeners. This way of re-framing a loss seems to hold great power.
Know Yourself Better
One of the most important lessons I’ve learned? There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to happiness. We must know ourselves and what’s right for us, because we can build a happy life only on the foundation of our own values, interests, strengths, and temperament.
Consider the question below. Perhaps it will illuminate a hidden or ignored aspect of your nature.
