You Don't Get Over Loss, You Grow Around It

In this wisdom talk, we are going to deal with three things. First, why trying to move on from grief can actually keep us trapped in it. Second, how to stop fighting our pain and learn to live with our memories instead of running from them. And third, which is an important point, that is: what real healing actually means, and how can we carry our loss without allowing it to stop us from living.

So, grief is love with nowhere to go. That's it. It is as simple as that. That is really what it feels like. Nothing great. You loved someone, maybe your first lover, or things like that. You cared about someone, maybe a kid, or an animal, and things like that. Maybe you lost a person who's your relative, uncle, and so on and so on, right? Maybe you lost a version of your life that you thought would continue forever. And suddenly all of that love is still sitting inside you, but the person or the thing you used to give it to is no longer there. They all have been there, right? The love did not disappear. It just lost its address.

And then people tell you, "Move on." They tell it as if it's a drinking thing. Like you're drinking a coffee. Move on. We say it so casually, right? We say, "Come on, you have to move on. Forget it. It has been so long enough. It has been so many years. Life has to continue." And things like that. But think about the phrase for a second. Move on. It almost sounds like grief is a place you are standing in, and you simply need to walk out of it. Right? But grief does not work like that. Grief is not a place you leave. It is a weather you learn to live in. That's what it is.

You see, you can have a perfectly normal day. You can go to work. You can talk to your friends. And then suddenly a song plays, let us say, or you smell something familiar. Initially, when I was with my first lover, there was one particular song that was like an anthem for us. It is a song by Elvis Presley: "Can't Help Falling in Love with You." Oh, it's a beautiful song. When I used to sing that song, she used to melt in my arms. But after we got separated — you know, every relationship goes through ups and downs — these songs used to remind me of her, and then I used to cry. But the thing is, there is nothing wrong in that.

So you had a normal day, let us say, and then something — a smell or a song — reminds you of that person, or you see an old photograph and things like that, and for a few seconds you are somewhere else. That is grief. It does not always announce itself. Sometimes it just walks into our head as naturally as a relative walking into your house. And this is where we make the first mistake. We try to run from it. I still remember I was trying to push away the feelings. But it doesn't work like that. Only cowards run away from the feelings. Only cowards want to escape the feeling in the name of spirituality, or follow the feet of gurus, and visit an enormous amount of ashrams. Face your feelings. The fastest way to heal is to feel, not run away.

So what do we do? We keep ourselves busy. We fill every empty minute, right? We keep talking. We keep scrolling. We keep working, and so on and so on. We say yes to every plan because we do not want to be alone with our own thoughts, right? But then night comes. Now the game begins. The phone is finally down. The room is normal, and so on and so on. And there it is. The thing you were trying not to feel comes knocking on the door, because what you run from runs beside you. We all must keep that in our head. What you run from runs beside you. Wherever you go, you can distract yourself from pain. But you cannot outrun it. Because the pain is not somewhere behind you. It is inside you. You cannot outrun a shadow that is cast by your own body and mind.

Don't try to escape your pain. Don't try to run away from anything. Face it. And this is why — this is why — moving on can actually become another way of staying trapped. Because the moment you say, "I have to get over this," you have already started fighting with yourself. That's the most stupidest thing that you can do. That's why many of the spiritual people still have war. Many of the spiritual people abandon their worldly duties. It's simply because they have misunderstood what spirituality means. Spirituality means facing the duality of the world as it is, and not complaining to gods and goddesses. Not running away to ashrams and following the feet of gurus and getting fooled.

You see, one part of you is hurting. Another part of you is saying, "Stop hurting." Now you have two problems. You have the original pain, and then you have the war against the fact that you are in pain. Are you seeing what I'm seeing? A heart at war with itself cannot rest even in peace. That is why, even after so much achievement — whether materially or spiritually — people still say, "I have not achieved great things," or "I have not done it. I feel something is missing," and so on and so on. Many of the great philosophers too said it. They have achieved great things in this world, but at the end they say, "What was the point? Nobody followed, nobody changed," and so on and so on. All that is because they still do not know who they are.

You see, think about how strange that is. Let's say you lose someone, and then you become angry with yourself because you still miss them. You remember something, and then you tell yourself you should not be remembering it. You cry, and then you feel weak because you cried. You feel okay for a few days, and then one bad morning comes back, and you think you have failed. But who decided grief has a deadline? Who on earth told you that you must run away from your emotions? Who is the stupid guy? Bring that fellow. Let's all take a whip and beat that guy. Who decided that the grief should have a deadline?

People say, "It has been a year and I have not moved on," or "It has been five years," and so on and so on. As if the heart is supposed to receive a calendar notification saying, "Congratulations, your grief subscription has finally expired." It doesn't work like that. It really does not work like that. Whether you are a god or a devil, time does not heal. What you do with time heals. This is the main point. Time actually does not heal people. But what you do with time heals you. You can spend ten years avoiding something, man. That does not mean you healed from it. Right? It may simply mean you spent ten years avoiding it.

The only way I healed from my past relationship is not because I became spiritual or saw the truth and so on and so on. It is because I allowed myself to sit and cry like a mad man. You know, there were times where I used to put romantic songs in my head and cry, cry, cry, cry, cry, and I healed drastically because I allowed myself to say, "It's okay." Right? This is the main point. So you see, but you can also spend time actually feeling it. That's how it slowly, honestly, without turning every emotion into a problem that needs to be solved, something changes. Things will change, because the past is not necessarily something you need to escape. Keep that in your mind. The past is where your love lived. That relationship happened. That person mattered, or that thing mattered. That chapter shaped you now. Right? You cannot erase it without erasing a part of yourself. Keep that in your mind.

And this is why running away from the past does not make you free. A man who runs away from his past takes it with him and loses the road completely. You see, look at someone who tries to move on too quickly. They hide the photographs. They avoid the name. They change the subject. They stop talking about what happened, and so on and so on. And everyone around them thinks, "Wow, they are so strong. They moved on," and things like that. But sometimes that is not strength. Sometimes it is just well-organized avoidance. Because you can lock something away and still think about it every day. The door you keep locked is the door you keep thinking about.

It is like holding a beach ball underwater. At first it is easy. You push it down. You hold it there. But after some time, your arm starts hurting, man, and now all your energy is being used to keep the ball underwater. You cannot swim properly. You cannot relax. You cannot enjoy yourself. You are constantly managing the thing you are trying to suppress. And what does the beach ball do? The moment you lift your hand, it comes to the surface. That is what happens to spiritual people when they try to avoid their emotions and run away to ashrams and organizations and follow the feet of gurus, thinking they will help. Now, I'm not condemning or blaming gurus. All that I'm saying is: face your feelings, man. That's what it has always been. The guru became a guru because he faced his feelings, or she faced her feelings. Right?

That is what happens with grief. The harder you push it down, the more energy you spend keeping it down. And eventually something happens. A song, a smell, a birthday party, or a photograph, or a random Tuesday afternoon, and suddenly the ball comes back up, like the beach ball coming back up, because suppressed pain does not vanish. It waits for a weaker moment and hits you like a sniper gun pointed right in front of your head and shoots the bullet.

So what happens if you stop pushing? You let the ball float. It is still there. You have not magically erased it. But now your hands are free. You can swim. You can breathe. You can live. You are no longer spending your entire life trying to keep something from existing. And that is why — let the wave, I mean, let the wave break, and you will find the shore. That is how it is always. You do not have to defeat every wave. Sometimes you just have to let it pass.

Wisdom is like the boat on the ocean which allows you to cross and go to your destination. But that does not mean the wave will behave. Just because you have a Titanic ship, the wave will not say, "Oh, it's a beautiful ship. Rose and Jack are going to have a love story. I do not want to disturb them." It doesn't work like that. Wisdom is the boat which allows you to cross the ocean. That doesn't mean the waves will behave, right? People think that if they become spiritual, or if they have some wisdom, no problem will come in your life. You're only fooling yourself if you think problems will not come. But you have the ability to deal with them much better. That's how things are going to be. So keep that in your mind.

This is probably the hardest thing for people to understand. Feeling something does not mean you are becoming that feeling. You can feel sadness without becoming a sad person. You can miss someone without needing them back. You can remember without living there, or you can cry without being broken. Because to feel is to finish. Let me say that again. To feel is to finish. Not instantly, or not perfectly. One wave at a time. Every time you allow the sadness to move through you without immediately trying to destroy it, things slowly loosen within you. But every time you push it down, you give it another reason to stay. Pain that is felt can become memory. Pain that is constantly refused can become a prison.

So maybe we should stop thinking of grief as a journey away from something. It is a journey with something. You see, that is the beauty of it. You do not leave your loved ones behind. You learn to carry them differently. At first, grief can feel like a huge stone. It is, man. Everybody has faced it. Right. I too have faced it. You are carrying it everywhere. You cannot put it down. You cannot walk properly. Right? You cannot think properly because you are carrying something within yourself. Everything feels heavy, and so on and so on. But slowly something changes. The stone becomes smaller. The grief becomes smaller. Not because the person mattered less, or things like that. Not because you forgot, or the love shrunk down, and things like that. Because you became stronger around that memory. Eventually it becomes something like a pebble in your pocket. You can still touch it. You can still know it is there. But now you can walk. And that is different from forgetting. You are not walking away from your loss. You're walking with it.

And sometimes you need to talk about it, man. Let's be honest. Don't try to think, "I'm a man. I should not cry." If you are a man, cry. If you are a woman, cry. Crying is the most purest form of emotion. But sit alone and cry. Don't think gods and goddesses should come and understand you're crying. Don't think somebody should notice you're crying. Then you're just performing. If you're crying, just sit and cry. It's okay. I have cried millions of times. You know, I used to put that song — by the way, the only time you all must listen to the song. It's so beautiful. I used to put that song and cry, cry, cry, cry, cry. Only God knows how many tears I have shed for that song.

So say the name of the person. Tell the story. Talk about what happened to yourself, or cry in the car. Sit under the tree and cry. Cry at the kitchen table. It's okay. Cry when nobody's watching. There is nothing shameful about that, because silence does not automatically mean peace. A sorrow unspoken grows loud inside the walls of the heart. Sometimes the strongest thing you can say is simply, "I still miss them, and I feel them, and I cry." It's okay. No performance is needed there. No philosophy, no pretending. Just the truth, right?

And something else important will happen. Do not be afraid when happiness comes back. A lot of people secretly feel guilty for being happy after losing someone. They laugh, and then they suddenly think, "How can I be laughing when they are gone?" But why should love require you to suffer forever? You can miss someone and laugh, right? You can cry in the morning and enjoy dinner at night. You can remember someone with tears in your eyes and still enjoy your life. You see, this is the secret that I follow. I feel everything. I don't avoid it. If I'm sad, I'm sad. I don't go talk about it. I sit and feel sad. If I'm happy, I'm happy. I don't go talk about it. I sit and feel happy. It's as simple as that. Joy is not the enemy of grief. It is its cousin. The ability to feel pain and the ability to feel joy comes from the same place. You care deeply. That is why you can feel hurt deeply. That is why you can hurt deeply. Right? And because you care deeply, you can also experience life deeply.

So do not turn grief into a punishment. There is no finish line. There is no morning when you suddenly wake up and say, "This is it. I'm completely healed. I moved on from my first lover." It doesn't work like that. Nobody moves on. People can only move with — make friendship with the past. Not be an enemy of the past, or try to become hero of the past. Some days will be easy. Some days will surprise you. You might think you are fine, and then something brings everything back. That does not mean you have gone backward. It simply means memory does not move in a straight line. Keep that in your head. Healing is not a straight road but a spiral. You pass the same pain again, each time from a higher ground. That's how it is. You are not the same person who experienced the original loss. You have lived. You have changed. You have learned. You have become someone else. And maybe that is the real purpose of grief. Not to return, not to turn to the person you were before, but to let the experience become part of the person you are becoming.

Scars are proof that the wound was met with life. And people who have suffered deeply sometimes become incredibly gentle. They notice things other people miss. They understand silence. They recognize pain in someone's face without needing an explanation. Because once you have known grief, you start recognizing it in other people. And here is the — probably, I mean — the deepest point. The opposite of grief is not happiness. It is numbness. If you feel nothing, it does not necessarily mean you have healed. Maybe you have simply gone out of range. Real healing is not completely disappearance of pain. Real healing is able to have peace beside the pain. You can say the name. You can remember the past. You can smile. Maybe your eyes still become wet and tears roll down. But you are not destroyed by the memory anymore. And that is freedom.

Sometimes I still think of my first lover because she impacted my life. But I no longer sit and cry. Whenever a thought of her comes, I close my eyes and pray for her. It is okay. I pray for her goodness. Not that she should suffer or something like that. If you think that she should suffer, or your past lover, or this person should get the lesson, and so on and so on, you have not healed. You are still a pathetic human being.

So why does moving on sometimes keep us trapped in the past? Because even when you are trying to escape the past, you are still looking at it. You're completely thinking, "I need to get away from this." So your entire attention is still centered around the thing you are trying to escape. To flee is to face the thing you fear, only with your back to the world. But sometimes change — changes when you stop running. Things change when you stop running. So stop running. Turn around. You look at the grief. You say, "Yes, this happened. Yes, I loved them. Yes, I missed them. Yes, it hurts." And you stop trying to make reality differently. Then something strange happens. That is the important thing. The grief stops chasing you. It sits beside you, and now your hands are free. Now you can live. Now you can love again. Now you can laugh without feeling guilty. Now you can walk forward. Not away from the past, with the past. And maybe that is the real meaning of healing. Not forgetting, not deleting, not becoming the person you were before, but making peace with what cannot be changed.

Because love is the root of grief. Cut the root and you cut the heart. And the one way out is through. And the one way through is slowly. You do not have to get over everything. You do not have — you see, you do not get over a loss. You grow around it. That is the thing.

Ultimately, I will conclude my speech by saying: follow the message, not the messenger. You know, you are not the grief, the pain, and so on and so on. You are the awareness on which the entire drama of life is happening. This philosophy is pure entertainment. Turn your mind within and see things for yourself. Then you will understand that you are that unblemished awareness which is the origin of all origins. You are the self-aware reality on which the entire galaxies, atoms, dark particles, and so on and so on that is named exist. You are not the pain, nor the love, nor hatred, nor the person. You are that on which all this drama is happening. You are the self-aware reality which is the substratum of all, whether you like it or not, or believe it or not.

Thank you.