“Don’t Cry Because It’s Over, Smile Because It Happened"

Losing someone that we love can often be one of life's hardest challenges. In this talk, we explore the wisdom of the phrase, "Don't cry because it is over, smile because it happened." Healing from loss is truly a possibility for all of us. Please note, this is a talk, not a guided meditation.

Transcript

Welcome to the Happiness Podcast.

I'm Dr.

Robert Puff.

Don't cry because it's over.

Smile because it happened.

I don't know if you've ever heard this quote before,

But it's attributed to Dr.

Seuss and I researched it and it doesn't seem like he may have necessarily have written it,

But most people when they quote it think of Dr.

Seuss.

I love this quote for so many different reasons,

Because one of the biggest challenges in life is loss.

When we lose someone that we love,

It can be so hard.

If we live long enough,

Sooner or later we will probably lose both of our parents.

And if we love animals like I do,

They just don't live as long as we do and we're gonna lose them.

If we fall in love with someone,

It may end.

We may have a friend that passes or someone that we care about that just doesn't make it in life and dies of cancer or some other disease.

There's so many ways we can experience loss in life and it truly can be heartbreaking.

But I want to talk about this quote today because I think it has a lot of deep wisdom in it that we can apply to our lives because how we look at things affect the way how we interact with our world.

Mind you,

I'm not talking about suppressing our feelings.

It's very healthy and wise of us when we lose someone to grieve.

We let those feelings flow and we'll feel better.

That's how we know we're grieving in the appropriate way.

But I do think there are other ways of looking at it that can make the grieving process much shorter and it really gets back to this quote.

Don't cry because it's over.

Smile because it happened.

We so often expect things to last forever and one of the things that I teach her on the Happiness Podcast is that life is impermanent.

So the second we enter a relationship with anyone,

Whether it be a parent,

A loved one,

Or even our own child,

There is a possibility that it may end.

But what we can focus on when it ends is not necessarily all that we lost but instead focusing in on all that we gained when that relationship was in our lives.

I have lived long enough now to see a lot of death and dying in my life.

Part of it is I love animals and almost always have had an animal and animals just don't live as long as we do so they pass.

But of course I can grieve and will grieve but mostly I'm so thankful for the years that I had with my beautiful pets and that goes across the board.

Though this is hard to do,

It has a lot of deep wisdom in it.

Focusing in on what happened in all the beautiful years we had with that loved one is far more healthy and far more going to create happiness in our hearts than focusing in on that it's over and perhaps our lives are over because of that.

We all know people that have such deep grief that they'll never love again or they'll actually give up on life.

Hopelessness,

A sense of despair that nothing will ever be good again,

Is one of the key ingredients of suicidal ideation.

It's a sense that this will never come again.

I will never be happy again.

I will never find love again.

So what's the point of going on?

What if instead we could celebrate the great love,

The great memories we had with that other being?

Then instead of grieving to the point of wishing our lives were over,

We could celebrate and rejoice in all the wonderful memories we had with that other person,

That other being,

And then also trusting that in life we can keep loving again with new people that come into our lives and be so thankful for them.

There's always hope if we don't give up.

That is the key,

And I think what this quote is so helpful about,

It helps us not to give up because if we shift our focus from crying over that the relationship is over and instead smiling in our hearts because it happened,

I think hope rises out of those ashes and we can find love again.

We can get by and we can even remember all the beautiful memories we had with that person and be ever so thankful because we all know the second we enter any relationship,

It can end.

That is how life works.

We all know people that have been deeply in love and lost that person.

Some of them grieve for days,

Sometimes weeks,

Sometimes months,

Sometimes for the rest of their lives.

Others celebrate the person that they were with and continue living well and sharing that love that they have with either the people that are in their lives and sometimes with new people,

Whatever it may be.

When loss occurs,

Whether it's through death or through moving or through even a breakup,

We can still be okay,

But we have to remember the beautiful moments and celebrate them instead of focusing in on that it's over and the grief can be so unbearable that we want life to be over.

That is sad.

Would the person that we had that we're loving relationship with truly want us to end our lives?

Or would they rather,

Whatever amount of time we have left,

Find new love or have other experiences with other people and celebrate them,

But at the same time continue to celebrate life.

It really is a choice.

We have to choose to keep living,

Finding joy in life,

Having new experiences,

Creating new memories or grieving and staying stuck in that grieving.

And I know we all know people who spend decades in grief and never get over it.

Why choose that path?

It's just a choice.

Why not instead acknowledge,

Yes,

I know I could complain that life isn't fair,

That they took my husband way too early,

That my child wasn't supposed to die,

But that does happen to people.

Why do I have to be a good person?

Why does it mean it can't happen to us?

I know it's unkind,

Of course.

I know it can be incredibly cruel,

Absolutely,

But it doesn't mean we have to give up on life.

Wouldn't it be far better to smile because we knew we had those memories now to our dying breath and focusing in on all the beautiful things that we had with this person or this animal instead of giving up?

We never have to give up unless we choose to.

Giving up is always a choice.

Instead,

We can say,

No,

I truly am thankful for all the memories I had with you,

But I'm also going to live my life and create new ones with new people,

With new pets that come into my life,

And be thankful for them.

And someday people will grieve me when I pass.

And it's just part of the cycle of life.

People come,

People go,

Animals come,

Animals go,

Love comes,

Love goes.

When we flow with that,

Life goes so much better.

It is appropriate to grieve.

I'm never going to deny that.

But grieving should be limited,

Like perhaps for a half an hour a day,

And finding effective tools where after we grieve we feel better.

When we grieve,

We want to feel better.

It's like throwing up,

Getting that grief out of our system,

And we feel better.

When we grieve,

It has a sense of,

Thank you,

I feel better.

Depression is negative thinking.

That's where we think,

I'll never find love again.

This just isn't fair.

All those negative thoughts,

That's depression.

Grief is missing that person,

Being sad they're gone,

And then letting it go.

And mind you,

We may come back to this grief over and over again for years.

But because it's limited,

Number one,

And because,

Two,

We choose to keep living life well.

We don't give up on life,

Even though in the morning we may spend a half an hour grieving.

The rest of the day,

We're out living and enjoying life.

And we find that life truly can be a beautiful adventure.

Now one thing that helps me,

It may be irrelevant to you,

But it does help me,

Is studying and reading about near-death experiences.

There are literally millions of reports around the world,

And I think I've read a couple hundred thousand.

No joke.

I've been reading about cases of near-death studies for most of my life,

And what you'll find is something beautiful.

People may have no belief in the afterlife at all,

Expecting to just be dead for eternity.

And yet when they die,

Many of them are greeted by loved ones that pass before them.

And sometimes those loved ones are even their pets.

It's so beautiful to read these cases.

Now,

It is true all these people could be lying all over the world,

All millions and millions of them.

Or perhaps,

Perhaps this could be comforting to us saying,

Well,

That's an awful lot of people that say that they're meeting their loved ones after they pass.

So maybe I will believe in that because I really want to spend eternity with the people that I love.

I think there's a lot of evidence for that.

I know you don't have to agree with me,

But at least if you are in the pits of despair,

Perhaps look into near-death studies.

There are some beautiful cases on YouTube where you can watch them,

And they're wonderful.

Now getting back to the quote though,

I want us to remember,

It is okay to grieve,

But wouldn't it be better to celebrate what we had and with that celebration say,

Okay,

I know I've lost you,

But life can bring me so many other people.

And I have good people in my life.

I have animals that still love me.

I have people that still love me.

And even if I'm totally alone and feel like I don't have anyone else,

Or I could never replace this love again,

I can still reach out and find a little love here and a little love there.

And guess what?

Those little loves add up to a lot of love.

That's the key.

When we're grieving,

We just can't give up.

It's just too sad when we give up.

When we end our lives or we give up on life,

It hurts so many people.

And I think it hurts us too.

Wouldn't it be better to keep going,

To focus on all the beautiful memories that we had with this other person?

And though we grieve the loss of that one we love so deeply,

We also realize that we're going to continue to live our lives and live our lives well.

And then we can love others.

So when it does come our day to go home,

To be done with this life on earth,

People that are still left here can say,

Wow,

I have so many beautiful memories with us.

And they smile in their hearts because of what happened between them and us.

We can shine love on other people and we can let love in from other people.

And when some person or animal or loved one moves on,

We take a deep breath.

We do give ourselves time to grieve,

But limitedly.

And mostly we reach out for love from others.

We give love to others.

And together each day,

Because we realize life is a gift,

Each day becomes a beautiful adventure filled with love for ourselves and love for others.

And that love makes life,

Our life,

Beautiful.

Thank you for joining me on the Happiness Podcast.

Until next time,

Accept what is,

Love what is.

Reviews

🙏

thank you. very kind and wise words.

You are so compassionate and encouraging! I am blessed by this 💕🙏

Thank you for this Dr. Puff, I took my dog to the vet yesterday expecting a sprained ankle but found bone cancer instead... it goes without saying I'm struggling with the flood of emotions. While the message in your talk isn't entirely new to me its helping me keep my head above water and try my hardest to be thankful for the precious moments we still get the chance to share before it's time for him to move on... Truly; thank you for being you and doing the things you do.

Thank you so much

Another great talk Dr Puff. Thank you for sharing your kind wisdom🙏