Own Your Power and Make the Choice

“You are powerful, even in the aftermath of your loss. It simply comes down to choice.” This week’s blog was contributed by my brother, Dr. Rabbi Baruch HaLevi, who has guided thousands of people through grief and mourning. Baruch focuses on power and choice to arrive on the other side of grief. 

To be alive today means that we are living during the wealthiest, most educated, accomplished, secure and powerful era in human history. Of course we face tremendous challenges, both collectively and personally. However, we have so many opportunities, so much possibility, so many resources to face and surmount these obstacles.

You want an education – go out and get one.

You want to start a business – get up and do it.

You want to pursue your passion – get going and follow it.

That, my friends, is the definition of power and we are powerful beyond the previous generations’ wildest dreams.

Still, having guided thousands of people through all of life’s ups and downs, peaks and valleys, there is one area where we are far from powerful, and I’d argue we have actually regressed. When it comes to facing our mortality in general, and grieving the loss of a loved one in particular, we tend not to feel powerful at all. The men and women whom I guide—people who are wildly powerful in every other area of their life—feel utterly powerless when confronting loss. And it isn’t their fault. It’s what they were taught. It’s what those who came before them demonstrated and what we, as a society, have come to believe. We have come to accept that we are simply passive participants in the grieving process. We are taught that, at best, we can wait out the pain. Perhaps we can numb it, hopefully we will endure it, but the most we can hope for is to survive it. And that is the definition of powerlessness.

But, my friends, that is not the only option for us in the aftermath of our loss. Time and again I have seen people reclaim their power as they pro-actively and purposefully face their grief, enter their darkness, and arrive on the other side having grown from it. They’ve opened their heart through it, and discovered beauty and blessings within it’s depths. And it simply comes down to a choice. Or, in the words of Holocaust survivor and best selling author, Dr. Viktor Frankl:  

“We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

The Choice

Yes, your loss is tragic.

Yes, your heart is shattered into a million pieces after your loved one has died.

Yes, your natural reaction will understandably be to run from the darkness, hide from the pain and, in a myriad of ways, avoid having to confront your grief, hoping to, at best, simply survive.

I am here to tell you there is another way—a more powerful way—to approach death’s darkness. There is a way to move beyond merely surviving, and to instead find meaning and purpose and to feel powerful once again. And it comes down to choice:

Will you choose to make your stand and confront your tragedy?

Will you choose to enter your grief and learn from it and grow from it?

Will you choose to discover sparks of possibility, potential, beauty, and even blessings, not in spite of the darkness, but because of it?

Will you choose to be powerful and not only survive, but thrive, as you fully and finally return to living your life?

Make these choices for yourself, for your loved one, and for the living. And make these choices for all of those who will follow in your footsteps.

You are powerful, even in the aftermath of your loss. It simply comes down to choice. Own your power and make that choice.

You are powerful, even in the aftermath of your loss. #Spirited Click To Tweet

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