Clock It

It’s so easy to appear calm and collected when things are going smoothly. It’s when the unexpected arrives at our doorstep, that you are truly tested. Life is designed to make you strong, each little episode directed to you, for you to choose WHO you want to be in the world.

The most trying experiences can be your entry way to a whole new life. Haven’t we all heard of the hard-drinking guy, who now does presentations on safe-drinking from his wheelchair? Not all life lessons are so dramatic, it could be as little as offering to hold the door for someone when your own heart is breaking. In this small but difficult act, you show what you are made of.

The sound of our lessons will grow deafening if we do not take heed. We must never say to ourselves, that things are not SO bad, that they will get better, especially if we see no evidence of that. We humans can deny the most obvious things only because we don’t want to take action. 

The escalation of symptoms of your adult child that means she must move in with you, is not what you were expecting when you are 55. A spouse walking out the door, telling you that he has been unhappy for decades and can detail his numerous affairs just to prove it, is not what you were anticipating when you sat down to your bowl of cereal. But these things happen and although we were given many clues/signs/premonitions/warnings of what was ahead for us, we are still taken off track.

Yes, Life can be awful, dark, lonely and sad, and still we get to the other side. We wash our face, we look in the mirror and say “this will not last forever, just let me get through today.” That’s all, just today, sometimes we need to get through the next hour, sometimes the next minute is all we can handle. That’s okay.

Allow yourself the time to feel the pain, set a clock if you need to, and then choose. Do you need one more hour or are you ready to move on and be that much stronger? Because how will you teach resiliency, if you haven’t looked catastrophe in the face and made a choice to carry on?