Grief: When Major Loss Challenges Your Beliefs

A major loss can challenge your sense of certainty in your belief system and religious faith. You may find yourself examining many of your values and beliefs, including the purpose of life, death, suffering, and whether there is a higher power. Alternately, you may gain comfort, courage, and hope from your religious beliefs during this time.

It is important to distinguish between religion and spirituality.

• Religion is a system of faith and worship of a divine being. There are many different types of religions. All religions have certain beliefs, practices, and rituals.
• Spirituality is one's personal connection with and questions about the deepest meanings or powers governing life. Some people express their spirituality through their religion. Others may have a system of values and beliefs that does not include worship of a divine being.

There are some ways you can help yourself when you are questioning the purpose of life, death, and suffering.

• Be clear about your feelings. Are you feeling unsure about your religious belief system? Are you angry because you have different beliefs from those of your religion? Are you feeling empty because you do not have a belief system that answers your questions?
• Allow yourself the right to question. You may feel uncomfortable when you have questions that do not seem to have answers. Give yourself permission to say, "I don't have the answer for that right now," or "I don't know why this happened." Saying this instead of making up an answer or giving someone else's answer is often the first step in discovering what you truly believe.
• Talk with someone you trust. Talk with someone who will listen to your concerns and will not try to answer your questions for you. If you talk about it, what is bothering you may become more clear and you may find the answers you are looking for.
• Find a way to handle the feelings that arise. Are you angry with a higher power? Do you want to make a deal with a higher power as a way to avoid further distress and sadness? Are you frustrated with your feelings of helplessness? Do you feel guilty? It is important to recognize your feelings and handle them in the way that helps you resolve them.
• Find answers to your questions about religious beliefs. If you are confused about a specific religious belief, ask someone who knows the answer. Talk with a clergy person. Read religious books or texts.
• List your sources of spiritual (or religious) comfort or practices. What gives you comfort in times of questioning? Do you feel the need to be alone or with other people? Are there practices in your religion that you have not done in some time and would like to try again? If needed, talk with someone who can help you list and do some of the things you choose to do.

If you or someone you know is having trouble addressing religious or spiritual questions that arise while in a bereaved state, talk with a clergy person or a licensed counselor, social worker, or Dr. Losito, Ph.D, Pastoral counseling, which combines the spiritual expertise of a member of the clergy with the skills of a licensed counselor, may be helpful. You can also ask your local librarian to recommend books that can help address your spiritual questions.

Eliminate the Negatives of 2014

Your Mental Health: Focusing on the Positive

“People deal too much with the negative, with what is wrong. Why not try and see positive things, to just touch those things and make them bloom?” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

How much time each day do you spend focusing on the positive things in your life? Research shows positive thinking can make a huge difference in your mental health, your attitude, yourself-esteem and self-confidence. A famous book by Dr. Norman Vincent Peale titled, "The Power of Positive Thinking," discusses how positive thoughts can create lasting change in your life. A landmark study by Dr. Barbara Fredrickson, a positive psychology researcher at the University of North Carolina, backs up this concept.

So you know, positive thinking is not about just putting on a happy face or carrying a happy-go-lucky attitude. Rather when you see things with a positive attitude, you see more possibilities in your life. This allows you to build new skills and resources that can provide value in different parts of your life.

Conversely, negative thoughts can lead to bouts of depression and negative thinking can kill your self-esteem.

How to Change Negative Depressing Thoughts and Think Positive

If you are a long time negative thinker, the ability to think positively will take practice and time. Here are two posts from our depression and self-esteem bloggers to get you started.

1. Practice Positivity to Attain Depression Remission
2. My Path to Positive Thinking

Also, take a look at our video interview with Julie Fast, who has written several best-selling books on living with bipolar disorder and depression. Julie has bipolar disorder and shares her ideas on how to change depressing thoughts.

Going Forward

What Do You Lose By Succeeding?

Many people fear success. They fear what they will lose by succeeding.
Life is made up of many life events strung together like lights on a Christmas tree. The string that holds all of the lights at short or long intervals is loss. Loss hold together all life events. 

We must give something up in order to gain something new.Each event in our life requires that choices be made. Take for example the woman who wants to write her memoir. Let’s call her Emily. Let’s assume she is in her seventies, her children are grown, and she has a handful of grandchildren who are full of promise. She loves her family. She wants to write a memoir about things that happened in her life long ago. These things are the things we don’t speak of. These are her secrets. She is a great writer and has received praise for what she has published. She wants to become an American Nurse, but she cannot.
Emily is stuck with fear. She is afraid of what she will lose if she succeeds with her memoir. 

People will know her secret, her children will know a side of her they do not know, and she will achieve notoriety. It isn’t the success that bothers Emily. She would like to achieve that before her life is over. What bothers Emily is what she will lose. Let me explain.
Emily fears she will lose her anonymity. This is almost a guarantee. She will lose the way she is seen by her children. Also a guarantee. She will lose her secret, her privacy, and the story she has told herself about the secrets. Once a story is shared it is up for editing and revision by others. She will lose history as others have known it. History will need to be rewritten. She fears losing her children’s respect. She fears her children will relate to her differently. She fears it will not be the same.


Every life event, including the choices we make toward success, rewrites history. We will keep some things and we will lose others. Emily’s secret is that she had two children before her children were born. Ellen was pregnant once by a rape and a second time by way of a one-night stand. She gave both babies up for adoption, went on with her life, and then met a man, married and had several more children. Her children and her Best Friend never knew of the other children. Her memoir is riveting and a story about resilience, hope, love, and motherhood. She fears what she will lose by succeeding in the telling of her story; in the telling of her truth.


If you struggle with success you may want to ask yourself what you fear you will lose if you succeed. In my clinical practice this is a common theme of exploration. Sometimes a young med student fears finishing medical school or freezes up with her exams. What does she fear losing? Then there is the man who is unhappy in his marriage and he opts for an affair, rather than addressing the concerns he has with his wife. What does he fear losing? Most clinical examples involve fear, loss, life events, and success.

What do you fear you would lose by succeeding?


Peace and all good,
Dr. Nicholas