Outside Influences

Details vary, but all of us have at least one long-term challenge that shapes our lives. Some battle chronic health issues, mental illness, depression, the effects of abuse, addiction, and/or a distorted sense of self. We have to accept our challenges and their impact before we can learn to cope and maneuver through the hurt and influence associated with them. Acceptance and coping can take years, but living past hurt can be even more complicated by outside influences.

How many times have you heard that time heals all wounds? People who love you say it. It's printed on posters and in memes. You may have even repeated it to yourself. That statement, and others like it, imply that simply crossing days off of a calendar can push you forward. Some struggles can't be abandoned. Some require more of you than walking away. Some require attention and tedious emotional work. Time passes and can lessen the sting, but without the emotional work, the passage of time will only serve as a mark of frustration and justification for impatience and self-loathing.

In addition to passively giving time the power that you possess, working through a complicated situation can be made more complex by others. It may be easy to walk away from those who don't play an important role in your life, but what happens when the ones causing you pain and frustration are relatives and friends? What do you do when your parent, sibling, cousin, or childhood friend refuses to accept what you need to heal or tramples over your boundaries?

You are responsible for not allowing the same people to hurt you in the same manner again and again. This can be difficult and demand skillful maneuvering. It may require repeated readjustments of expectations and more defined boundaries. Easy? Not at all. Necessary? Absolutely. Those who cannot respect your boundaries may need to be on the other side of those boundaries. You have enough to live through without carrying the weight of clichés and the expectations and desires of others on your back. Do the work to take care of you and the rest will take care of itself.

Discover Your Power

Challenges are a part of life and come in different forms. Whether hardship is inherited, environmental, at the hands of someone else, or a reflection of our own choices, our responsibility is to grow through challenges instead of allowing challenges to stunt our growth.

In any challenge, we choose how to cope. We don't always exercise our choice intentionally, but the choice remains ours. We can either:

• dismiss the negative impact of adversity,
• allow our heartbreak to break us, or
• do the work and discover our power.

Some hurt is so intense that the only feasible reaction is to halt. Losing a loved one, receiving a life-threatening diagnosis, or experiencing any other emotional trauma can send you into a mental freeze. Often, this is a part of the process. However, there is a massive difference between an immobile phase and an immobile life. As long as you dismiss or ignore how you've been affected by your hurt, you will continue to make decisions influenced by a past that you haven't reconciled.

In order to treat a medical diagnosis, the diagnosis has to be acknowledged to determine a course of action. Similarly, issues that have an emotional impact like neglect, betrayal, abuse, or abandonment must be acknowledged. Acknowledgement does not mean you make room for your hurt to sit at the table of your life so that you can feed it. Acknowledgement means that you recognize the source of your pain, not that you surrender to it.

Maybe you have acknowledged your pain, but you can't get out of that stage. Maybe your heartbreak is breaking you. It's possible that you clutch your history and keep your painful narrative in your face and in the faces of everyone who cares for you. If this is the case, your hurt has become the root of every choice you make and the one thing you want, change, is impossible because you make decisions with your hurt instead of working through it.

The key to not remaining stuck in your pain or the acknowledgement stage is to assess. Determining how hurt has impacted your life

• through the decisions you make,
• the people you allow into your life, 
• and the messages you tell yourself 

leads you to the process of correction and progress. As you work through the assessment phase you practice making good choices and exercising wisdom. It is here that you use adversity to build up your strength instead of tear it down. By doing the work you discover your power and it exists in the same situation that has made you feel powerless.

Is it scary? Absolutely! Will it require a process that may not always feel great? Yes. Is that enough to keep you from doing it? Absolutely not. Consider the alternative. Would you rather make decisions through the lens of fear and avoidance or the lens of clarity and purpose? Would you rather live clutching pain or releasing it? You are absolutely worth the work it takes to reconcile your past and intentionally direct your future. If you are willing to do the work you will discover your power.

The Walkway

On a recent trip to the airport I witnessed a toddler less than excited about his day. He cried as the family received boarding passes. He cried as the family went through security. He cried as the family walked between concourses. His last fit amused me as it was a representation of the way that many go through life. He stood on a moving walkway, facing the opposite direction while repeatedly screaming, "I don't want to go!"

Life can be difficult, but in the difficulty exists opportunities to grow into larger, fuller versions of ourselves. At the time that these types of situations arrive it's not comfortable or desired. We feel that life is conspiring against us and go through periods of denial, anger, grief, confusion, and sadness. However, we always have a choice. We can choose to focus on classifying situations as fair or unfair, consequence or punishment, or we can choose to invest in our lives and use challenges to extend into more than we imagined. We can stretch ourselves, trust our inner circle, discover the source of our peace, and learn just how strong we are when we need strength most.

Maybe you are in the middle of one of those situations, one leading you to question everything and trust nothing. Maybe you feel like you are being tested in every area of your life or you are facing difficulty in one area with such intensity that you can't imagine an end or even relief. Whether you decide to turn your attention toward growth or turn your back on it and scream all the way, life will react much like that moving walkway the unhappy toddler was on—life will guide you toward the best version of yourself. You can turn away, close your eyes, scream, or even run in the opposite direction, but life will continue to take you toward achieving your best self. Use your energy to walk in the direction of your best self, not against it.

Read last week's post, Need Evolution.

Limited Sight

I recently enjoyed a perfect day on the beach in Santander, a coastal city in northern Spain. While there, I noticed a more meaningful sight that will remain with me much longer than the finely-grained sand, transparent water, comfortable sun rays, and gentle breezes I felt. After enjoying the relaxing waves of the bay, I noticed an elderly woman experiencing the beach and appreciating its beauty just as much as I was. The only difference was that as she stood in the refreshing water, she had a cane in each of her hands.

The older we get the more we are presented with challenges. Each challenge presents us with a valid excuse to stop fully living. After leaving the beach I rode a bus through town and noticed two young girls fixated on me and my obvious skin discoloration. One whispered to the other, as they kept their gaze on me, and then burst into laughter. I told myself not to be concerned, but there was a moment when I felt they were discounting me. It felt like an injury to my soul. How could someone who didn't know my name, my history, my story, or anything about my character find my skin condition, something I have no control over, laughable and amusing? How could someone take one minute part of me and decide that it was the only defining part of me? Sadly, I told myself that I was done riding the bus in Spain. I was convinced that I did not have to subject myself to the ridicule of someone else's laughter while having to watch. I could walk wherever I needed to go. 

You may not be the "right" age, race, ethnicity, religion, or weight by someone else's standards. You may have a health condition, physical disability, or unique appearance. As much as it may be a part of who you are, none of that defines you in your totality because none of it is your only characteristic. You are still a person with dreams, kindness, laughter, and worth. You still have a heart that can give and receive love. You are made up of more than your challenges, heartaches, mistakes, and physical attributes. You are a total being, comprised of more than what can be seen. You are someone whose totality can only be felt after numerous transparent and open interactions. You are not defined solely by any one characteristic.

If an elderly woman can take her walking canes to a beach and allow the refreshing water to cleanse her soul, I can go out and get on a bus in an unfamiliar country. The elderly woman may have been told or even felt that she was too old, too needy, or too weak to experience all that the beach had to offer. However, she did not let that stop her from feeling all the benefits of the sun, sand, and water. Those girls on the bus may have hurt my feelings, but I cannot let their youthful insensitivity stop me from feeling all of the benefits that exploring the beautiful and rich culture that Spain has to offer. I challenge you to get back on your bus or force yourself in your ocean, even if you have to take your walking sticks with you. Life is much fuller and richer if you experience it completely, just as you have to accet that you are much fuller and richer than what others can see.

Read next week's post, Spanish 101.

What Do You Believe?

Opinions constantly infiltrate our lives. They are stated, written, repeated, shared, misinterpreted, and repeated again. Opinions can be constructive, positive, and destructive. Opinions are offered on what we wear, what we buy, where we live, how we live, and even about our character. We certainly have emotional reactions upon hearing the opinions of others, especially those we have a personal relationship with, but opinions are only allowed to make an impact if we believe them.

You may have heard that you’re inadequate. Someone may have said you’re not attractive enough, not smart enough, not talented enough, etc. While hearing unkindness hurts, you are still faced with the decision to either believe the criticism or disregard it. Words don’t penetrate your soul unless you believe them to be true. What you believe about yourself is far more important and carries much greater consequences than what others say about you.

In addition to giving weight to the opinions of others, you also hold opinions of yourself based on history. Experience can speak much louder than words. Your past may have taught you to believe that you are insufficient, illegitimate, or unworthy, and caused you to trust in those falsehoods. Whether you encountered child abuse, neglect, abandonment, or abusive adult friendships/relationships, you are more than how you’ve been treated. What you believe about yourself needs to be developed internally, based on the truth.

The truth is you are more than what others have said to and about you. You are more than any err in judgment or shortcoming. You are more than how others have treated you. You are more than your past. You are more than your circumstances. You are simply more. It's time for you believe it.

New Space

Last year I walked away from a regimented life of work and graduate school for a trip around the world. I left routine for wonder. I knew my semester-long journey would change me, but I had no idea it would send my previous life away for good. In addition to reaching the end of a wanderlust lover’s greatest dream, I also had the agonizing task of saying goodbye to my father. None of my life resembled what I left. I had traveled to fourteen countries in four months, but nothing felt as foreign as my return home. Everything was so different that I felt lost in the change. I wondered where I was and who I was in the new space.

Who we are is not where we live, where we work, nor is it solely wrapped up in the people in our lives. Who we are is the internal voice that is present at home, at work, and in the company of loved ones—and not-so-loved ones. We often get so focused on our day-to-day activities that who we are goes unheard. We can be so preoccupied performing roles and playing into expectations that who we are is silenced. Ironically, it is in unchartered territory that we are successful in discovering our most authentic self.

My life didn’t feel familiar, but the comfort of familiarity is the enemy of growth. Wading in the contentment of routine ushers in complacency and erodes motivation. This period of uncertainty and partial seclusion has been uncomfortable, challenging, and difficult, but it has also been freeing, insightful, and inspiring. I once longed for my routine, but I now love my deeper understanding and appreciation of independence. I hoped my relationships would remain the same, yet if they had, I wouldn't have been as grateful for the unexpected sources of support that have become my daily rays of sunshine. I initially wanted to recreate the life I left, but I have grown more driven to produce a life I wouldn’t dream of leaving. My life changes demanded me to change my life. I was never lost in the new space, I simply needed to grow in order to operate in it.