No One Likes to Lose

 No one likes to lose.

I’m a competitive person and I like to win. If you make whatever we are doing a game (I love games!) or a competition, then I become laser focused on winning and competition can make even a mundane task fun. I’m not a sore loser, but I don’t like to lose. For games and competitions that don’t matter, I can high five the winner, laugh, and shake off the loss instantly.

Today while I was driving home, I was processing some emotionally heavy things and I thought about how much loss I’ve had in this season of my life…especially the summer and fall have been tough. I know that no one likes loss but lately I feel like I’ve been taking loss incredibly hard. The word “loss” made me associate the word with “loser”and I hate losing. I know losing in a competition is not the same as feeling loss on an emotional level, but for some reason I began to wonder if the pain of losing people, relationships, opportunities, whatever it may be, has any connection to the feeling of losing in a competitive sense. I just don’t want to feel bad, whether on a very shallow level or deep level. lol My personality type is the type that has a major fear of being stuck or trapped in emotional pain. Again, I know that no one likes emotional pain, but avoiding it is not everyone’s driving factor. As I’ve been delving more into personality and how it relates to fears and motivations, I was surprised to realize that avoiding emotional pain is a major motivation in my life. I don’t like loss and I don’t like being a loser. 

From losing people to death to losing relationships/people that I thought would be in my life and close to me forever, to losing the day to day interactions with people due to them moving, or moving on, these losses have me in a grieving season which in turn has had me (at times) lose hope, motivation, happiness, and energy. I’m not always there but it’s taking an incredible amount of energy to not stay there in that place. When you lose people that you had envisioned being on your journey with you, you lose plans/visions for the future that they were included in, you sometimes lose your day to day normal routine, and sometimes even parts of your identity.

Why write this? Well, another huge part of my personality type is authenticity. So here I am, being authentic because social media isn't a place for me to go deep. Also when I hear other peoples stories and struggles, and how they are overcoming them, it gives me hope and motivation. So maybe, sharing my story will encourage someone else to keep going. Loss is a part of the human experience. It will continue to happen and have to be dealt with. So we can't just ignore it.

So what is my plan during this season? Try to process and try not to avoid the negative emotions, but truly feel them and experience them even though I want to run and just ignore the pain by being positive. I plan on blogging, writing songs, praying, reading, getting more physically active, and reminding myself that seasons are only seasons. They aren’t forevers. I will focus on truth rather than feelings. I remind myself that if I truly believe in my faith, that the God of the mountain is still the God of the valley, then I need to walk that out and trust it. 

Right now I have more questions in life than answers. I feel so disappointed in the outcome of so many things. And even now I’m fighting the urge to write “but I’m so blessed in so many ways” and list out all the fantastic things going on in my life currently because there are SO many blessings and positive things. As a coping mechanism, I tend to always spin the negative and ignore the pain by focusing on only positive things. That may sound healthy and optimistic, but you have to acknowledge and work through the bad stuff too. So this is me saying, “life sucks in some ways. So I’m gonna acknowledge these icky feelings, face my fear of being trapped in emotional pain, and try to dig myself out of this feeling as QUICKLY as possible!” lol I'm gonna trust that Psalm 34:18 is true: "The lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit."

I will be ok. So will you.