After the Struggle, Comes Strenght

Can you remember a time in your life when you did not know how you where going to make it or even if you were going to make it?  I know I have on several occasions .  I think most of us have lived through several of them, and have survived despite our worst fears.  Getting through can change our  core being in positive ways.

It is impossible not to be touched by the countless struggles of my patients.  Their day-to-day pain of living with broken hearts and dreams.  Surrounded by fears or wading through depression that never seems to end.  Painful relationships that have nowhere to go.  Fears of not being able to pay the rent or mortgage.  I have walked in their shoes.

Betrayals from the very people you trusted.  Thrown off the rails into the darkness of night. These happen to the best of us and without warning.  After the shock, the over whelming fears set in.  Where to go from now, when even now seems impossible to live.

Crawling through the shattered dreams of our life build calluses of sorts, not of flesh, but within our spirit.  These calluses can harden into anger and need for revenge, or build bridges of strength.   It is all a matter of choice to whether we want to use our hardship and pain as a springboard to grow or drown in anger and victimhood.

In the void of darkness, we are driven to seek light by something inside of us. I feel that within us all there is this wellspring of strength that lies dormant until needed.  We have no idea that it is there when life is uneventful and fair.   Perhaps we are all given a dose before our soul travels here, but who know for sure from whenst it comes?

I have found that this little seed of strength needs to be awaken in some who have only been blessed with fair winds of life.  Otherwise they would never have the gift of knowing that they can survive.   Blown out of their calm waters triggers a flight towards mobilizing this dormant parachute tucked inside.

Life is all about learning who we really are.  When pain and fear strikes we have to learn how to sooth ourselves like a child.  Compassion for our brokenness must first come from us.  It is we who have the task to find our way with the help of loving others, but ultimately the force to do so comes within.

One of the beautiful things to witness for me, is to see this power of self rise to the top, after having been buried in the recesses of their psyche.  It breaks though the consciousness ripped open by pain.  Power to continue the journey and redirect their life.

Treading the water and hanging on by your bare fingertips in times of strife are akin to going to the gym of psychological muscle needed by all.  It is the way we get it by flexing these painful moments in our life to something much more powerful than before.

As I say often to my patients, we need to be like a buoy in the bay.  The waves of life may slosh over us, but we bounce back up!  That is the resiliency we all need to continue and persist.    Our scars weave a infra structure of strength.  We are toughenned by tears.                                                                                                                                      Our struggle turns to wisdom to teach us that  hard times do not last.  Taxed to the ultimate, we pull through in the end. For each new struggle we learn that this too shall pass.