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Don't Stop Celebrating

Don't Stop Celebrating

By Jay Shetty
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As we try to keep our connections strong, we have to make sure we don't stop celebrating. A lot of people have had their proms pushed back, weddings postponed, anniversaries missed, vacations canceled. It's important that we stop and pause on the day we were planning a special moment and still celebrate. I saw a couple who was meant to get married, and they had pictures of all their family members in seats in the church. It was beautiful to see. Don't stop celebrating. You can still have an incredible birthday or anniversary, an incredible moment, because the moment was about the people and about connection. It was never about the place.When we do miss these moments, though, it will still hurt some…and there is never a need to judge or belittle anyone's pain. Honoring someone else's grief is a chance for us to grow. It's common to feel judgmental and make others feel guilty for their grief. At times, we don't want others to feel the pain they feel, because their pain can trigger ours. So, if we start by saying, 'Let me grieve for my loss,” then we can realize that the person missing a graduation may have faced as much pain as someone suffering a loss we think is much larger. Pain is something that we often think of as big or small. But that's just our perspective. We have to put ourselves in other people's shoes, and also feel the loss in our own lives. Only the can we let people heal at their own pace in their own time.Excerpted from The Call to Unite: Voices of Hope and Awakening. Copyright © 2021 edited by Tim Shriver and Tom Rosshirt. Excerpted by permission of The Open Field.

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