Embracing a motto that has made challenges easier for me, I have faced difficulties since then. It’s not only about surviving hardships but thriving in them, clearly. Am I someone who contradicts their wisdom, but more importantly, am I someone who hoards their wisdom? Shouldn’t it be everyone’s birthright to hoard wisdom? Okay, confidently moving through life while knowing that unexpected and difficult things will ultimately be, it shouldn’t be everyone’s birthright.
We wouldn’t have thought that the terrible thing we survived would leave such awful reminders as physical and emotional scars. However, it enables us to find purpose and channel the pain into some sort of healing. There is no logic or reason behind why bad things really happen sometimes. This is not to say that everything happens for a reason, but rather, you could choose to accept that you have the power to give meaning to your hardships by turning them into opportunities or lessons. Perhaps, if you can’t welcome adversity, you could at least accept that it has the potential to bring about change. When things aren’t working and we realize that we need to change, we typically don’t grow from comfort, but rather from the pain of adversity. Would you think of adversity as an opportunity for growth? Instead of looking at adversity as a burden, would you consider how it could change and how you would feel about that change? Would it be okay for you to still be in the midst of pain or sadness, knowing that eventually, things could possibly, but okay, be changed? Imagine.
Challenges & Social Media
Congratulations on writing something right! Do you feel average in your life? Does life feel somewhere in the middle, with a spectrum of joy and despair? Your life is not all rainbows and sunshine. We can feel like we’re doing something wrong when we only see the highlight reel of someone else’s life. Humans cannot be perfect because there is no such thing as a perfect human. It doesn’t matter how many times people proclaim that their kids, job, or relationship is perfect. Now you know that there is no perfect life. While everyone else seems to be walking on the sunny side of the road, you might believe that you are following the storm clouds. In this age of social media, where everyone’s posts are curated highlights of their lives, it’s easy to think that your hardships are unique.
Existence is a Challenge Course
Everyone loves an underdog because we can all relate to the perseverance of stories. The sweetness is in the comeback, and it matters how many times you can get back up. There’s a saying that it doesn’t matter how many times you fall down, but how many times you get back up. Take some time to feel the feelings and ask yourself, “What now?” Sometimes, we lose something or someone important. Sometimes, our kids make mistakes. Sometimes, our plans fall apart. Sometimes, we get rejected. Sometimes, we feel bad. Sometimes, bad things happen to us and we have no control. That’s the reality baked into the human experience – adversity.
Planning Your Return
You can only truly know what successes mean for someone else on your journey, whether it’s yours or someone else’s. I bet that person didn’t feel small for not achieving something and getting out of bed, their teeth gritted and determined. In fact, sometimes a small, barely noticeable comeback can be done! If you see someone achieving something, try to be inspired by them and not begrudge their successes. Be proud enough of yourself to enjoy your own successes without needing constant external validation. If you constantly seek the approval of others, you will likely be disappointed. Your life choices are like a memo to the world, and you don’t need anyone else’s approval for your comeback.
Challenging Doesn’t Mean Unachievable
You will eventually settle back to the middle ground and enjoy it because you’re really happy when you’re in the intense phase of the emotion, reminding yourself that you’re almost through it. Emotions tend to follow a bell curve, with joy and despair going hand in hand. It’s like a contraction of labor. They creep up as you reach the peak and then taper off. We have built-in circuit breakers to protect us. It’s not wired hard for the human nervous system to sustain intense emotions for an extended period of time.
Greetings to the Clan!
The mindset shift that may make all the difference in facing adversity is declaring that your life will be “sweeter” after it. So, I encourage you to become an honorary Ferguson and declare that the next time you face hardship, your life will be even better. Through my years of working with others and my own experiences, I know that we can all get through whatever happens in our lives by working with and supporting each other. I also recognize that facing hardship can be really difficult and may require some support, which is one of the main reasons I became a therapist. It encapsulates my motto and my view of the world, which is that we should value the hardship we endure while recognizing how it can shape us.
