Many of us are unfortunately experiencing loss during these times. And the loss can take many different forms. For some people it may be loss of employment. For other people it may be loss of the ability to celebrate something special to them like a birthday, bar mitzvah, graduation, anniversary or some other event. Other people are experiencing the loss of just connecting with friends socially, being able to go out to a restaurant or to a sporting event or to a concert, just be with other people in groups. And still other people are experiencing unfortunately a loss of loved ones or colleagues or associates or friends. Maybe all of us to some extent are experiencing a loss of freedom. It's just the freedoms we took for granted that we now have to be a little bit more cautious and a little bit more deliberate about practicing. Whatever the loss you're experiencing, it's important to note that there are some common emotional reactions that underlie almost every sense of loss. For example, it'd be perfectly normal to feel a sense of sadness or grief. It's also perfectly normal to feel a sense of anger or outrage, frustration at the injustice of what we're going through right now. And still other people may feel a sense of guilt, guilt about either having things that other people don't have right now or guilt about being healthy when other people might be getting sick. Could be any one or all of these emotions or something altogether different. Important thing to note is whatever you're feeling, you have the right to feel. The challenge with that is then to figure out what to do with it. And there's two broad concepts that can be helpful whatever you're experiencing in terms of loss. One of them is called radical acceptance and radical acceptance involves accepting things as they are exactly as they are and not as we would like them to be or not as we would hope they would be or not as we think they should be. It is looking at things as subjectively as we can in the here and now and trying not to judge. When we do this, we can't make the situation itself better, but we can relieve some of the suffering that's caused by wanting it to be something other than it is. It's still likely to cause feelings of pain, but the suffering we can control. And then it's important to note we have behavioral choices, actions we can take despite what's in front of us and because of what's in front of us that might help us to feel a little bit better about what's going on. These could include things like connecting with other people through various video conferencing platforms in order to diminish the loss of social connectedness that we might feel or feelings of isolation. Can use things like Zoom or FaceTime, things like Skype to reach out and see people and bring them into our worlds as best we can. We can pick up the phone if you don't have access to video conferencing software and call someone that you haven't spoken with in awhile. If that doesn't work, you can go old school and write a letter. Reach out to someone and make it like a little surprise gift waiting for them in their mailbox in a few days. And if you can't do those things, maybe you can sit out on your porch or stoop and just say hi to people passing by. If you've lost a job, you can take productive action by revising your CV and maybe uploading it to job search engine sites. You can reach out to connections, professional connections and check in with them to see if they know of any potential opportunities that you might not have been aware of. And if you've lost a loved one, you can potentially do things in honor of their memory. You can join with people potentially to create a fund in honor of their memory or journal and remember the good times, the things that they did that contributed so positively in your life and potentially set a course for the future where you keep those positive memories and associations alive. None of these things in and of themselves necessarily take away the loss you're feeling, but all of them together might make it feel just a little bit lighter. Maybe give you the motivation to help other people who may also be experiencing loss in their lives.