Losing. When you hear the word losing, it’s hard to find any positive connotation in it. It may trigger the memory of a negative event from your past, or it may remind you of a person or loved one you have lost.
EXPLAINING LOSS
In many paths of life however, losing has an artform attached to it. The ability to take a loss, but not see it as defeat.
Sometimes all ‘losing’ means is a time of improvement or a time of change.
DaQing Wang is a psychotherapist at Daya Counselling in London. He says humans are bad at accepting change which in turn, affects how we handle loss.
“Humans are notoriously bad at dealing with change or accepting change,” he explains. “Grief and loss is just kind of an extension of that.”
It is easier said than done. Change can be hard, especially change from loss. But Wang says it’s completely normal and important to allow loss to have its effect in order to deal with it.
“Grief itself is a normal part of life, you’re going to lose things. You’re going to lose people, you’re going to lose, whatever and be sad,” Wang says. “Feel those emotions.”
LOSS IN SPORT
Losing is hard to take in any game or sport. What makes it harder is when you don’t have a team alongside you experiencing the same loss.
Aaron Jeffery is a professional MMA fighter, who recently signed with Bellator MMA. He says the massive mix of emotions that comes with a loss in fighting can be hard to break down and handle.
“Fighting is weird because it’s this huge buildup. And it’s stressful, obviously,” Jeffery explains. “So when it’s done, there’s always a release. So you lose and you’re like, there’s the feeling of like completion and the relief of it being over. But then there’s the loss.”
While in fighting, a loss comes down to someone else being the superior fighter at that time, Jeffery says it’s important to take the loss as a sign to improve, not a sign of defeat or hopelessness. An important piece of advice to take into any loss in life.
“Don’t make excuses,” he says proudly. “Don’t try and brush it off. Like, think of why you lost and where you can improve and what you need to do better.”
While that advice may be centred around sports, it can be translated into the overall flow of life as well.
Losing is almost always followed closely by a period of grief and sadness, that’s the beauty of life. The idea that even when you get knocked down to what feels like square one, there’s an artform to building yourself all the way back up to the top. The art of losing.
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