WHAT TO DO WHEN LIFE SUCKS
~A friend of mine recently lost her brother in a car accident, and even though he had suffered from demons and substance abuse issues for many, many years, his death was still horribly shocking and tragic.
~Another friend was recently unceremoniously fired from a very high level position (where she was a top performer) with no notice, no heads up for her team, and no immediate new job prospects - all because the head honcho just didn’t like her, or more accurately, didn’t like that she was confident enough to tell him what he didn’t want to hear.
~I myself wrote before about getting mugged in broad daylight in my cozy, wealthy neighborhood in LA and the resulting injuries and anxiety I faced.
Outside the obvious trauma, what do these three incidents have in common? They’re gifts.
It feels uncomfortable to write that at all, much less put it out there into the world, but I know it’s true. And for the record, thanks to my best friend Tracey gently pointing out the problematics of the phrase “everything happens for a reason,” I no longer use or believe that.
Instead, the way I think about it is that while there is no “gift” in the tragedy itself, maybe it offers a takeaway for us in another, seemingly unrelated, arena.
~The first friend used the death of her brother to move on from a devastating breakup - her ex, too, had some substance abuse issues (and also just generally was hot and cold and not the right partner for her). She was able to finally let that go because, she told me, her brother’s death clearly shined a light on how she actually wanted to live her own life.
~The second friend eventually saw her firing as a blessing - and a way to remove herself from a toxic situation and find a job and working environment she actually enjoyed and was able to thrive in. She is sitting in that position now.
~Personally, I used my getting mugged as a way to finally commit to digging into and healing my own childhood trauma, particularly around my relationship with my estranged father and the sudden early death of the man who raised us, my stepfather. Even though it’s been sooo hard and uncomfortable to face all of that and actually work through it, the gifts of all of it have been compounding and reverberating in ways that are nothing short of shocking (in the best possible way) for me in all areas of my life.
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The first secret in alchemizing trauma into a gift is perspective: every single thing in life is what you make it, and/or what you take from it, and this can show up in a lot of even small ways:
It’s a gift to have a point of comparison to compel you to move into something new
It’s a gift to get stronger and more resilient
It’s a gift to know you will never go back to what you embraced or tolerated before
It’s a gift to share your story, connect with someone over it, and make them feel less alone
Your experience can also literally save someone’s life (I now evangelize about the importance of not walking around anywhere with noise-canceling earbuds in!)
The second secret to receiving something awful as a gift is time: it might take plenty of it, but being aware (both internally and externally) and open is the baby step in this category.
Gifts are littering our path, and one way I practice getting through to the blessing or benefit in the bad ones is to be hyper aware of the good ones - all the little miracles along the way.
I love the cicadas hunkering down in the northeast in summer, I delight in my oldest (and too cool) nephew unexpectedly throwing his arms around me and telling me he loves me, and watching the summer sun rise is next level appreciation.
I also embrace the unexpected (and the uncomfortable), and try to see opportunities in everything.
My family always makes fun of me since I’ve learned to say, “Thank you, I accept ” when someone says or does something nice for me, but keeping that mantra in your back pocket can also be a way forward in the darkest times.