Sadness and Pain are Part of Life

Because life is full of emotions, we cannot avoid sadness or pain. We will experience both. What mindset tools do you use to deal with them?

I have watched as several friends and acquaintances have recently gone through sad, difficult, and sometimes painful experiences. It was interesting to note the differences in those experiences. Some of those experiences would seem to be life crushing, while others would appear to be just momentary inconveniences. However, some of those people took the momentary to be devastating while others managed the crushing experiences well.

I cannot speak for any of those people as to what made the difference, but I would like to share some of my own observations and experiences to help shed some light.

Mindset Determines Our Outcomes

The mindset you have in any situation determines the outcome of the experience. You may be saying, “No way! I have no impact on what happens around me.”

I laugh at that now, not at you. That was something I used to say. I had no control. There was nothing I could do about what was happening in my life, and I was right. Things just happened, and most of them were unpleasant. I was bummed out and negative. Life was awful no matter how I looked at it.

That was due to one simple factor. I would not admit that I impacted what was happening to me. I chose the way things turned out. When problems arose, as they always will, I would see the problem and further consequences of it rather than looking for the solutions and lessons I could garner from the experience.

I am an avid family historian. When I look at my family, I learn so many important lessons. Those are ones that I don’t want to have to learn the hard. way. For example, let’s look at the march of Napoleon’s armies through eastern Europe. When his armies went through East Prussia, they brought with them many diseases, including typhoid fever. Because those soldiers interacted with the local inhabitants, the local people contracted those illnesses too.

I was struck by how many people were dying from fevers in the parish I was researching when I realized that it was during the invasion. What must it have been like to lose parents, husbands, wives, children, brothers, or sisters? I saw that entire families succumbed to the disease. In some families, only one child died. Other families lost no one. I understood that people were making choices.

What Do I See?

When I take time to look around my life and truly attempt to see what is going on, I gain wisdom and strength. I’ve been ill the last couple of days, and it has not been pleasant, but I have also been quite productive. In the past, I would have curled up and given up until it was all over. Now, I choose to keep going, though sometimes at a little slower pace.

I have also had a bruised heel. (PSA: Don’t kick heavy dumbbells with the back of your foot. It causes damage.) I was so focused on the pain and swelling that it has taken weeks and it wasn’t getting better. Once I started treating it better, and with more love, and then forgot about it as I worked on projects I wanted done, it has gotten much better. I started looking at it differently. I was seeing it as keeping me from preparing for a 5K that I want to run to reach a goal. Now I look at it as a lesson in learning to focus my energies toward what I want based on my current abilities. I will get that 5K under my belt sooner now that I have changed my focus.

What can you change focus to in order to get the results you really want? Sometimes the detours are the very thing that will get you to the goal that has been eluding you.

Pain is Essential for Growth

We always want to avoid pain, but how much do we learn from experiencing it? I have certainly learned to appreciate joy a lot more. I have learned that I want to treat my body better. Exercising more to keep my conditioning up while also feeding my body much better fuel gives me more than just healthy skin. What are you learning from your pain? Do you still need to learn that you cannot control others? Perhaps you can learn that past choices do have consequences and that you must own the results. I have learned that pain from regret is not worth holding and that I would rather own my mistakes and move forward with the intention to not repeat them.

For further assistance, check out the following audio training.
— Breaking Chains —
— Letting Go of Defeat —

Find your lessons. When it is hard to see them, ask someone you can trust to help you find them. Be willing to go through some pain to find the beauty on the other side of the experience. When you do, your life will start to change for the better. Problems will still be there, but they will look very different. I know because I’ve experienced the joy of having problems. I like the other side.