Yesterday I posted a one-liner saying that I speak the language of loss. What I mean by that is that my life has been informed, not by acquisitions, but losses. And put that way, so has everyone else’s.

We are told to think positive and yet the mind has never been able to do that. The mind speaks the language of loss; that’s why. It is why affirmations seldom work; they go against our internal experience of loss.

When we are born, we are sentenced to death. That is not pessimism; it is a fact. Subconsciously, everyone feels like a loser. And if they are honest, losing is preferable to winning, because winning is for the ego.

Leonard Cohen wisely said many things about loss; he himself was not a positive thinker. “There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.”

Jesus exhorted his followers not to lay up treasures on earth, that this world is not our home. Our home exists on a higher level than the mind, which is composed of the opposites.

When Jesus hung on the cross, he told the two thieves hanging on either side of him, “This day thou shalt be with me in paradise.”

My losses have been more severe than most. I can say that because I don’t know anyone who lost both child and spouse to cancer. These losses affected not only me but my son. He lost his childhood when his sister began going to St. Jude.

I know about loss and how it drives me to seek higher teachings than winning.

I know about being lost and how it impels me to become found.

I know about loss because that is what Christ taught. Only in being lost can you be found.

Vicki Woodyard