Transformation in Times of Loss and Stress

Before birth, the embryo puts down roots, so to speak, and attaches itself to a source of warmth and comfort. "Hey, this isn't too bad," you can imagine the pre-birth child saying. "This room is rather nice. I've nothing to do all day and night but float around and grow."

Ah, but that's the rub. As time goes on, the baby does, indeed, grow, so much in fact that he takes up more and more room until the eviction notice comes and he's kicked out into the wide, wide world.

Thus he experiences the first major transformation of a life that will, if well lived, consist of many transformative opportunities—though he'll often not recognize them as such. Yet all of life is one loss after another. As we fall asleep at night, we lose the day that is ending. When we awake, we are born into another day with new opportunities to grow and stretch.

This process was summarized by Erich Fromm when he said:

"Man is always torn between the wish to regress to the womb and the wish to be fully born. Every act of birth requires the courage to let go of something, to let go of the breast, to let go of the lap, to let go of the hand, to let go eventually of all certainties, and to rely only upon one thing: one's own power to be aware and to respond; that is, one's own creativity."

"To be creative means to consider the whole process of life as a process of birth, and not to take any stage of life as a final stage. Most people die before they are fully born. Creativeness means to be born before one dies."

In this section we explore how you can learn to respond to stress in such a way that it doesn't not become an overwhelming burden. We also discuss the many ways that letting go and grieving something which is lost can be a transformative process.

So if you have lost a loved one, or an important job, or a significant relationship, or any other loss that requires you to move on, we hope the articles in this section will help you recognize your own power to be aware and to respond—your own creativity.