How do we turn loss into positive impact? My 3rd TEDx Talk from an unexpected transformation

My most recent TEDx Talk was in Jacksonville, Florida, 4/7/18 for TEDxFSCJ: Barriers, and is now live, in honor of my grandmother, a Holocaust survivor, my grandfather, an ex-partisan from Poland, and in honor of the losses we all have experienced, which leave us with the heavy weight of grief and the even greater burden of asking ourselves…”What do we do to remember?”

What do we do when we’ve lost something in our lives? Can we get it back?

What if that loss is someone we’ve loved? What is our responsibility? How do we grieve?

And then…what do we do with it?

When we become a survivor of loss, do we have a responsibility to share their story? And can that help us? Can it impact the world?

I started examining that when trying to grieve the loss of my grandmother, an amazing woman.

When I woke up from my coma, I didn’t know that I would never see her again. Later on, I realized that learning about her struggles, as an amazingly resilient woman and Holocaust survivor, I could piece together her memory, learn lessons I needed to learn myself, and also help share her lessons with the world, who needed them now, more than ever.

We all have to deal with loss in our lives. We can lose a person that’s close to us, a material possession, an identity, our sense of home, or we can be struck by a shocking tragedy on the news. Unfortunately, the nature of life is unpredictable.

So how can we transform that loss into something positive — some way to celebrate the legacy of that loss and make an impact on ourselves and our world, while the spirit is “no longer here” can somehow live on?

Learn about the play, FIBERS, I discuss in the talk. See pictures from the event. Learn about the oral history work that inspired the play.

What I’d like to ask is…when you’ve lost somebody in your life, how to you grieve? How do you move on? Have you mourned their loss in a way that continues their mission, connects their story to the world now, and makes an impact?

I’d love to hear about it — write a comment or send me a note!

Amy Oestreicher is a PTSD peer-peer specialist, artist, author, writer for Huffington Post, TEDx and RAINN speaker, award-winning health advocate, actress and playwright, sharing the lessons learned from trauma through her writing, artwork, performance and inspirational speaking. She has headlined international conferences as a keynote speaker, and as author and star of Gutless & Grateful, her one-woman musical autobiography, since its NYC debut in 2012. Her writings have appeared in over 70 online and print publications, and her story has appeared on TODAY, Cosmopolitan and CBS. She’s currently touring a mental health advocacy/sexual assault awareness program to colleges nationwide. See her first two TEDx Talks at www.amyoes.com/tedx.