Master The Skill Of What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Stronger To Be Successful
What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. In my opinion saying this to someone who is going through hell and back with a situation is like showing a red rag to a bull, it just doesn’t help. There are times when we need to consider not throwing around such popular sentiments. We would be better off to hold our tongue and be a space for someone to just be.
At times we can feel like we are literally being killed in a situation we are going through and in one way we are going through a sort of death. This may be symbolic in its nature for example we may feel like we are shedding an old skin, an old way of being. Perhaps we have stood up to an abuser and said “NO, enough is enough”. This act represents the death of an old way of being, a standing in our power and embracing our free will and sovereignty.
Of course, going back to the sentiment of what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, this killing of an old pattern or a shedding of a skin does make us stronger and we can look back with pride that we have gone through and made a change in ourselves for the better.
The way in which we shed old skins or patterns can be different for everyone depending on what story is unfolding for us.
It might even be so subtle that we don’t notice or it may feel so overwhelming that we feel we will never rise again.
Here are some things to think about if you feel like you are going through a crisis in your life.
Is the change necessary for your personal growth? Again, if you are in the depths of a crisis you may not have a definite answer to this question. How will your life change? Will you have to develop courage and strength to walk alone in life? If so what feelings does this bring up for you?
If you are further along your journey you may be able to look and see the good that came from a situation which seemed life crushing at the time. Maybe you came away from a marriage in which you were a co-dependant and realise now that you are stronger than you thought, you are managing fine on your own because you have developed an inner strength you didn’t even know was there.
Maybe you met another partner and you find you are an equal in this relationship not a co-dependant waiting for the crumbs of life to be given to you or avoiding situations that you knew would bring the other’s wrath upon you.
When we have found courage we have suffered pain, when we feel illuminated we have known the darkness
This is the healing in the crisis situations that are sometimes thrown at us along our journey.
We develop a strength beyond all our imagination, we embrace courage because for some we had to grasp onto something in order to keep afloat.
Maybe you got over a fear you didn’t even know was keeping you stuck.
The journey to where you are now or the journey you may still be on, may seem unfair, unjust, unpleasant and unnecessary but curve balls are our life lessons. They not only make us stronger they also help us help others who are going through similar situations should we feel inclined to tell our story. Its hard to have true empathy if you have never known hardship just like its hard to describe a food you have never tried. We can of course imagine what it would be like to try the food we can use all our senses and conjure up a story.
We may not have voluntarily opened the door to allow the suffering in, but we can certainly close it behind us when we can stand and look back at how far we have come in our personal journey. We may have dreams that remind us what life used to look like, maybe there is still a bit of us stuck back there in the past story, but we know we can change that too. Our dreams will often give us these vital clues. Recently I had a dream about packing up my clothes. Some of my clothes were in my old bedroom from childhood and some of the clothes I picked up I felt I had never seen before. I was surprised to find a light coloured new outfit that I was going to wear on my last night of holidays. It reminded me of a new way of being, a lighter way, not suffocating the real me under layers and layers of un-necessary and dark clothes.
Once I see the hidden gem in this I can make the decision to shed any ways of showing up in the world (symbolically shown as clothes in my dream) and decide to adopt a lighter approach that shows me for who I am to the world.
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Until next time keep empowered.
Dolores Andrew-Gavin, Soul Care Therapist, Empowerment and Assertive Coach, Energy Therapist, Author and Mum.
