don't be like Keanu Reeves

What: Don’t be Keanu Reeves/Learn from traumatic experiences!

Background: In 1999 Keanu Reeves suffered a traumatic event. His child was stillborn. 2 years later the mother of his child died in a car accident. They were no longer together at the time of her passing.

Recently I read an old interview with Keanu Reeves. The interviewer stated that “The John Wick star is terrific as a man still mourning the death of his wife - in fact for the past two decades he has been seen as a melancholic loner” Keanu himself stated ‘Grief and loss are things that don’t ever go away’ … that he brought his experience to John Wick “Oh yeah, I thought it was one of the foundations of the role for John Wick. I love his grief,” he (Keanu) says, visibly perking up at the subject…What is it about grief that interests him? “Well, for the character and in life, it’s about the love of the person you’re grieving for, and any time you can keep company with that fire, it is warm. I absolutely relate to that, and I don’t think you ever work through it. Grief and loss, those are things that don’t ever go away. They stay with you.”

Ok Keanu I don’t mean to put you down and by all accounts you are a terrific human. Even more if the above is true I feel for you, a sensitive soul unable to move on.

But for everyone else don’t follow Keanu’s example! Don’t suffer, learn, transform yourself. Trauma doesn’t have to stop you, scar you enough that you don’t move on. Yes traumatic events will happen btw to everyone. Yes grief and loss can go away. No, our trauma does not need to define us. But if it does. let it be about the growth. about the lessons learned NOT about how it limited and saddened the rest of our lives. Let’s transform our tragedies into a hero’s story.

In Keanu’s case why did he choose to stay and live with the grief and loss that per his words have not left him. We cannot speculate about this individual but in other cases people choose to stay there for different reason here are some

  1. somehow enjoying the nostalgia the yearning… finding it inspiring somehow being “addicted” to feeling this grief. Sometimes we grow up with loss in our early life the feeling is very familiar and although we might not be consciously seeking pain it is familiar and we will seek the familiar and therefore we are trained to be comfortable with and therefore seek those feelings.

  2. Because we don’t know how to get out of the cycle. So here I can help!

    1. Every single emotion we have comes from a thought

    2. I control my thoughts

    3. I therefore control my emotions

    Meaning I can choose to feel differently if I think differently. For example, In my case I can choose to see my cancer as a horrible traumatic experience and be sad about it. I am far from perfect and I admit that some days I do feel this way but most days I choose to see all the beautiful experiences I have had because of it, how much I have grown bcause of it, how delightful it is to help others… and the list goes on

Source: https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/film/keanu-reeves-grief-and-loss-are-things-that-don-t-ever-go-away-1.3899589

Gretchen Stipec1 Comment