It's been a long journey of change, but now Carol and I have a happy married life, our daughter is now 21, she's a medical student, and she has two younger brothers, I read the suicide note every year on my birthday morning to remember to stay grateful for I stopped waiting, and I started doing a job each day that finally gave me a second chance at life.”
This talk is directly quoted from a trainee who attended one of our courses, and we asked him for permission to publish it in our new book titled “Getting Back to Happy: Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Reality, and Turn Your Trials into Triumphs).
In the book, my wife Angel says, “This trainee's words reminded me that sometimes we must go through dark moments to be resurrected and rise again stronger and happier. Although circumstances and people may break you down from time to time and push you to the bottom, when you focus your attention on the positive, open the doors of your heart to love, and keep moving forward, you can gather your strength, rebuild your character, and come back stronger and happier than you were.”
Life has two aspects, a very small aspect whose shape is determined by factors completely out of control, and another much larger whose shape determines the way you respond to those circumstances, Whenever a trainee comes to us frustrated by an uncontrollable life situation, we usually start by emphasizing the fact that sometimes changing the situation is not possible - in the short term at least - but you can always choose to follow a mindset that pushes you forward; this helps you to change from within, and ultimately allows you to grow despite the difficulties that you cannot control at any moment.
Life taught me and my wife Angel this lesson a decade ago when we had difficulty dealing with the harshest chapter of our life; we lost two people dear to our hearts by suicide and illness, our relative betrayed us, we lost our jobs, and we suffered financial fluctuations, all these events happened quickly, and one followed the other.
We have been through this painful chapter of our lives for two consecutive years, and at times we have felt that we have exhausted all our strength to move forward, and when our lives were down, we used our website as an outlet and a way to take responsibility. We wrote down our pain and our losses, the lessons we learned, and the actions we knew we had to take if we wanted to get through it all.
As we explored our new reality day by day and article by article – and through that, we faced and explored our pain rather than being occupied with it - we found strength and wisdom; Gradually we have learned to detect negative states of emotional turmoil and trouble, so we can overcome the emotions that once overcame us.
We forced ourselves with all our might to take small, gradual steps. We had frank conversations, exercised and meditated, and Then write it all down. It wasn't easy, but the little actions we took were malleable, and the daily routines of writing about them helped us keep the right track.
Although nothing seemed to change, everything was gradually changing, and today, almost 10 years later, as I sit here and stare at the New York Times bestseller list, I can't believe I see our new book in it. We describe the painful chapter of our lives over.
How did we do that? And how did my wife, Angel, and I get from the bottom to the top?
The answer is determination. We didn't give up on life, we stuck to the simple daily healthy routines we practiced when we were at the bottom, and we accomplished the most difficult tasks we knew we needed to do to restore happiness.
I've never been able to solve the mystery that lets me look forward to the future. But when I remember the past, I can see how important each day, step, lesson, breath, and article was, and this reminds me of another excerpt from the book:
“In the end, Simple things make a big difference, every step is necessary, and life is not isolated moments of victories and gains, but adversities and mistakes that lead you to your goal, effort, and hard work and small and simple activities you do every day. Every step and behavior you regret, a decision and a simple setback, and a small gain are important in the end.
Every event that seems useless is important. The job you worked while you were in university and paid the minimum wage is important, and the evenings you spent getting to know colleagues you didn't meet after that are important. The hours you spent writing an essay of your thoughts that no one reads are important, the complex unfulfilled plans of the future, and all the nights spent alone reading novels, news, and comics and questioning your principles and whether you are good enough as you are important.
All of these events have empowered you and led you to every success that you have achieved, shaped who you are today, and demonstrated that you have the strength to deal with the challenges facing you.”
However, when pain overwhelms you in one chapter of your life, you should know that it is almost impossible to feel strong and see a glimmer of hope in the tunnel of challenges; so I offer you the following:
facts that you must remember when your life is going in the wrong direction:
1. What happened in the past does not happen now:
at present, we all have pain of some kind, whether it is anger, sadness, frustration, disappointment, regret, or something else; so watch the pain within you closely and you will see that it is caused by the story your mind tells of events in the past, whether in the recent or distant past.
Your mind may insist that the pain you feel is caused by what happened, not by the story your mind tells, but what happened in the past is not happening now, and it's over, the pain is still there now because of the story you tell yourself subconsciously about the past event; this is because it is a matter of thinking only, so do your best to see it as it is.
2. Life changes from moment to moment, and you can also change:
When people go through hard times, they tend to draw conclusions and assume that the future holds bad times like it, and strangely enough, this does not happen at the same pace when things are going well. But when we suffer depression or fear or face difficulties, we add to our pain by assuming that tomorrow will be an exact copy of today, and these expectations are repeated and self-fulfilling.
If you don't get over what happened and what was said if you don't get over the feelings you feel, you will see the future from the same contaminated perspective, and nothing will be able to refocus on your destabilizing decision-making ability; You will continue to justify and recall your outdated and false view whenever you forget it.
3. The only fight you can take and win is today's battle:
No matter what happens, the only battles you can fight intelligently are the battles of today, but when you add to that the battles of the two awkward periods in which one has no limits to the beginning and no limits to the end - namely, the past and the future - life becomes painfully complex and excruciatingly complex.
4. Naturally, you're not always good:
Sometimes the only information our tired minds and our aching hearts can hold is that we are not feeling well. This emotion is from the core of human nature, and with its acceptance, you may feel that a burden has been displaced.
It is not easy for someone dear to your heart to leave life and no longer be able to make amazing contributions to this world. It is not easy for everything to collapse and for you to get stuck under the wreckage of the life you have planned, and it is not easy to go bankrupt, and not have a clear indication that an income opportunity is on the horizon, it is not easy to be so emotionally drained that you cannot get out of bed in the morning, and it is not easy to be trapped in feelings of failure or shame or depression that you have never experienced before. Whatever the cause of the painful separation in your life, it will not be easy, and to come to this conclusion is completely natural.
5. As your knowledge improves, your performance improves:
We have all been ignored, exploited, and neglected at some point in our lives, people have used us for their purposes, and we accepted far less than we deserve. But we must not regret one of those moments; Because it taught us many lessons about our bad choices, we learned whom to trust and whom not to trust, and we learned the meaning of friendship, and how to discover a liar and an honest person.
We have learned how to be ourselves, and how to appreciate truly great people and the wonderful things in our lives. Although there are things we can never get back and people who won't regret what they've done to us, we're able to figure it out better next time.
6. Chess or life game will not be won by moving only forward:
Sometimes you have to step back and take a stand that prepares you for success. Sometimes when you get out of one maze and get into another, it's a sign that you're not on the right path. Perhaps you should have turned left when you turned right, and this is perfectly acceptable, for life has taught us that going backward is permissible, and that change is obligatory when necessary. There is a difference between giving up and going back to the beginning to take the right direction.
7. Every farewell leads to a meeting:
You have to realize that most things are not part of your life unless you keep thinking about them. So stop sticking to what hurts you, and give room for the right feelings, don't let the things you can't control ruin all the things you can control.
in other words; Give up everything that didn't work, so you can give room in your life for things that might work. Farewell moments in life are a gift. When certain people give up on you, and certain opportunities close their doors in your face, there is no need to hold onto them or wish them to stay in your life.
If the doors are closed in your face, this is a clear indication that those people, those circumstances, and opportunities were not part of the next chapter of your life; it is a sign that your personal growth needs a different person or additional things, and that life is allowing them to reach you.
8. The desire to struggle opens the doors of opportunity wide:
One of the most important life skills that you can develop is accepting and growing during periods of distress and difficult periods. This is because it is often difficult - at least in the beginning- to get the best things, and if difficulties and feelings of distress are avoided, those things will be lost permanently.
Mastering a new skill, building a company, writing a book, getting married, raising children, and staying healthy are all hard tasks, but they are amazing and worth every effort you can make. You need to know immediately that if you master facing challenges and accomplish difficult tasks, you can accomplish whatever you think of.
9. The biggest problem you often face is how you think about the problem:
Remember the limiting beliefs that you have as an aspect of your life in which you think you are meant to be restricted, this may include any aspect of your life that you hope to change, such as your weight, your career, and your relationships, what decision did you make that essentially reflected the reality of your place in this world? And now I want you to think of something different and remember a fleeting moment when you thought that the opposite of that "truth" was true.
It doesn't matter if it's a small gain or even a partial gain, what is the moment when you can look back and say, "It wasn't like me at all, but I did it"? When you discover the holes in the wall of limiting beliefs, you can tear down that wall; Because every day you can take a step forward, this step may be a positive ritual you practice every day that gives you more small gains, confidence, or momentum.
10. Small gradual changes change anything in the long term:
The concept of making changes step by step may seem blatantly obvious, but at some point in our lives we are so preoccupied with the present moment that we crave our immediate needs, we want to have whatever we want right now. For example, we want to feel better and make more progress, and this desire often leads us to bear a greater burden than we can bear; So remember that you can't lift hundreds of kilograms together, but you can easily lift one-kilogram hundreds of times; Your small successive efforts gradually reach your goal.
In conclusion:
Your goal, in the end, should not be to have a perfect life free of pain, but to live an amazing life even if it is turbulent or sometimes painful, and to get up every morning and look at life with a beautiful look, and do not underestimate anything, for everything has an exceptional aspect, and every day is a gift, do not treat the moments of your life as ordinary; Spiritual strength means that anything can interest you even if life does not go your way.
Angel and I do not say this as a matter of words only, we endured the pain, we passed the storms of life, and we learned from our experiences a few times, they were cruel, and we must admit that they brought us down and kept us frustrated for a while. But when the time of grief ended after every misfortune, we followed our path stronger, understood life better, and increased our respect for it; So use the 10 ideas we mentioned in this article to move forward in life with pride in yourself.
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