The sadness that arises from losing something we value is natural to all human beings. It is an important colour in the palette of human emotions, for it shows that we care, value, and love. We must allow ourselves time to grieve for what has been lost. Grieving helps us stay sensitive, open and loving, despite our loss. When we avoid facing our losses and get busy with distractions to numb ourselves, we lose the capacity to love. We lose sensitivity in life.
Understand that sensitivity means being open to all experiences, not just pleasurable ones. When we shut ourselves from feeling pain, we shut out all sensitivity.
As we grieve, we can also start to engender feelings of gratitude. The way to do this is to ask ourselves: What if this person never existed? What if I never had this experience? Would that be okay? When we realize that we might never have been alive in the first place, we begin to cultivate gratitude for what is, however, it is, and however long it lasts. Everything we experience is a bonus, for we could never have been born. These people we loved might never have been in our lives.
Whenever we grieve, it indicates that we expect the experience to last forever. Although this is not an explicit understanding, it is an implicit assumption. This is why the Stoics suggested a practice of visualizing that the other person may soon be dead.
If you are kissing your child or wife, say that it is a human being [a mortal] whom you are kissing, for thus when they die, you will not be disturbed.
Epictetus
This practice of negative visualization can seem morbid to many. But the ancient philosophers were not asking you to visualize the loss of a loved one to sap all energy and enthusiasm out of life, but rather to make you feel grateful that these wonderful people are with us – here and now. This feeling is the root of gratitude in life. Ingratitude comes about when we act entitled – “Life must treat me well”. When we come to realize that life does not have to treat you well, then everything here becomes a bonus.
As we practice this feeling of gratitude through rational understanding, something magical happens. The pain of the loss continues to remain in us, but we gain the ability to smile at it. Often, when tears stream out of our watery eyes, they tend to be sweet tears. Tears that reflect how strange life is. This sadness is grounded in acceptance of what is, and devoid of bitterness at life for having robbed you of something you valued.
Taking this attitude, helps us remain supple, loving and being so totally open to pain so that it no longer troubles us to that extent.
Journey of a thousand words 