Lost everything: now what?

“The Lord has given, and the Lord has taken away” is a saying from the biblical Book of Job. In life, you can build up so much, and that feels good, but through accidents, illness, bad decisions, and bad luck, you can lose it all. What do you do then? How do you ensure that, just like Job, you maintain your faith in God—or in life?

In this blog, I take a closer look at how to deal with losing everything.

I lost everything

If you have lost everything, this is a dire interruption to your life. For example, when you live in your own home, with your own belongings, you are also surrounded by your memories. You are connected to your past, so to speak.

Then, if a fire, bankruptcy or some other reason caused you to lose that house and all the things in it, that connection is gone. It can even interrupt your connection to the now and the future as you imagined it.

And that feels very unnerving. After all, there's nothing to properly commit to in the material world.

In addition, losing everything can also cause your daily rituals to change. Perhaps you now have to go to a different supermarket. Even your relationships and expectations for the future may be different than before you lost everything[1].

Losing everything also affects your well-being. According to Maslow's pyramid, having a home is also well known as a basic need, which is necessary before you can continue to build your life. The annoying thing about losing everything is that the foundation has been removed from under your feet.

After all, you may start over, and the first step is restoring that foundation. Getting a new place to live, only then is there room again for many people to work on themselves and their other personal goals.

But then again, as an adult, you often realize that these kinds of things tend to overlap somewhat. Owning a home provides a sense of safety and security about your future[2].

Having lost everything is quite a confrontation with the fact that nothing in life is certain. And that can be very difficult.

So how can you best deal with losing, say, your home?

It is then helpful to know that creating a sense of "home" with a new house can take a while. It also depends on how well you can adapt and how motivated you are to do so.

For example, if you had to move because nothing was available in your previous hometown, it can sometimes take up to a year for you to feel at home in your new hometown.

Just as you might grieve the loss of a loved one, you can also grieve the loss of your home. This process can take three to six months.

Literally building your home

To deal with the feeling of having lost everything and needing to make a new home a new home, it is helpful to make appropriate purchases. If you currently have very little budget because you have also lost your job, for example, then look for thrift stores, Marketplace bargains, and check Facebook Marketplace or flea markets in your area to see if you can find something there that better fits your budget.

This is not necessarily an easy process, but if you buy something make sure it is something that makes you happy. As Mari Kondo says, "This one sparks joy." The more effort you put into this, the faster your new house will feel like your home.

Home is where your family is

If you have lost all kinds of material things through a fire or bankruptcy, for example, but your family is intact, it is also good to focus on your relationships. Many people with permanent partners also know that they only feel at home in the place where their partner also lives, otherwise it just doesn't feel the same.

Doing things with your family, exchanging thoughts, laughing and crying can also do a lot to help you feel at home again when you have to start over.

Losing everything after divorce

Sometimes you might also have the misfortune of losing your sense of family entirely precisely because your relationship has fallen apart . If your ex is allowed to continue living in the house but you aren’t, it can also feel as though you’ve lost everything.

In this case, talking to peers can do a lot to help you pick up your new life. This can be very therapeutic and you may meet new friends, which will make you feel better in your new location anyway. A nice BBQ with the boys or a girls night can make everything feel a lot better anyway.

In addition, you can also start volunteering in your new community. This can help you develop a sense of self-worth, success, and fulfillment. It can also help you feel more connected to the local community (source 2).

Hypnosis after you've lost everything

Hypnotherapy is also used to help people who have been victims of a disaster. For example, in Mexico, a group of villagers who had lost everything in an earthquake were helped with hypnotherapy using suggestions tailored to their culture. This helped reduce anxiety and depressive symptoms caused by the loss[3].

Work has been done using Ericksonian techniques. Symbols, metaphors and paradoxes are then often used to cope with the mental issues created by the loss.

In Hypnosis Institute Netherlands training, you will learn Ericksonian techniques, such as working with symbols, as early as the first year.

Sometimes you may also have lost your employability for work due to an accident. This can also feel like losing everything, because the new financial situation often causes you to have to live more cheaply, and sometimes you also have expensive lawsuits to pay that sometimes come to nothing. Such as with the insurance company or previous employer who should pay you compensation[4].

Of course, this can also cause you to experience anxiety about the future and depressive symptoms, just like if you lost everything in another way.

As a hypnotherapist, it’s important to build a connection with people and first give them the opportunity to express their emotions, frustrations, or whatever else they want to share. Once that’s out of their system, they’re often more open to suggestions (source 4).

So for people who need hypnosis, "Above all, express your concerns and emotions to the therapist." This is often done in the conversation before hypnosis. This also gives the therapist tools to work with to help you suffer less from having lost everything.

Next, a hopeful future can be painted. This can be done by the hypnotherapist telling a story about someone he has helped successfully before, by the hypnotherapist helping you with a kind of guided visualization, so you can imagine this for yourself.

This provides a kind of goal to work toward.

To work toward this, a hypnotherapist also makes sure to get you in a "yes, good idea" kind of mood. This can be done by asking a few rhetorical questions about what you could achieve and whether you want to.

This also makes you increasingly open to the suggestions the hypnotherapist gives you on how to rebuild your life, without feeling frustrated that you have to do it “all over again.”

Breathing exercises can also be used to release tension in your body due to loss. For that, you can also get post-hypnotic suggestions to apply it at home if you find that tension does return to your body (source 4).

This exercise can be given at the beginning or at the end of hypnotherapy. During the therapy itself, other techniques can be used to deal with the loss itself.

If using symbols and the like is not having enough effect, the beliefs you have about life, your loss and what you need to have accomplished can also be examined. When those beliefs prevent you from feeling good about rebuilding your life, hypnosis can help you change those beliefs.

This can be done, for example, through regression or by having a conversation with your inner child. Hypnotic affirmations can also be used to instill new, helpful beliefs, such as:

"It's okay to start over."

"My story has a plot twist and isn't finished yet."

"I am grateful for my loss, because I learned from it and can now help other people," says Dr. K. K., who is a member of the company.

These are just examples, depending on your feelings about your loss you may get other suggestions from a hypnotherapist to help you.

Want to learn more about how hypnotherapy works? Then join the free online masterclass on hypnosis.

Do you want to help yourself or others with hypnosis? Then come to one of our seminars or sign up for one of our training programs. You can take them in person or online.

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