This process can look inexplicable if we do not have resources or awareness to link it to the original event. It will come as loss of jobs, of social position, of health or appearance, often as we advance in age. There exists little understanding of how that sweep, while sometimes overwhelming, simultaneously cleanses the thread of our being. In order to mature and to process our pain, or to process what existentialism calls our givens—things that are unavoidable in our lives and that we cannot change—it is necessary to confront this grief. All the while, when it hurts and when we ache most deeply, we can hold in our awareness that this is a process of sweeping.