STRATEGY ONE
H: Help While You’re Hurting
Productivity in spite of the pain is the aim of this strategy. Like Olympic athletes who perform despite their injuries, we must continue to function in the face of our pains. The denial of pain only serves to dilute reality, but a vision for the pain enables us to Thrive! Learn to take your experiences and transform them into wisdom that can be shared with others. Despite your heartache, you must be willing to invest your life in the success of others. Opportunities abound to put this strategy into practice. If you’re feeling lonely, don’t lock yourself in the house with a pint of ice cream and an old movie. Invite someone out to dinner who you know is going through a difficult time. Quiet the raging of your own heart by being a sounding board for someone else. Listening to others’ problems broadens our perspective and lessens the feelings of isolation that we often experience when going through difficult times.
Helping others can take our minds off our own problems and give us a much-needed break. This break is not an escape, but rather a time to refresh that enables us to approach our challenges with renewed vision. Helping others is a proclamation of faith in God’s faithfulness and your resilience. Our emotional stinginess sometimes “blocks our blessings” and the blessings of those around us. We refuse to share our experience; meanwhile others have gone through or are going through the exact same thing. Serving others sets the stage for our come back. Helping someone is a natural elixir. Give yourself a daily dose. It can start out small, but it will grow. And as you participate in the H.E.A.L.I.N.G.TM journey of others, it will reassure you of your own strength and purpose.
CHAPTER 1
Opportunity Or Obstacle?
Pain makes you feel singled out. Though you know you’re not the only person experiencing pain, you somehow feel as if you are alone to face it. That is because when pain touches your life, it touches your uniqueness. Don’t be alarmed by its arrival, the fact that you are experiencing pain is just an indicator of your humanity. Pain isn’t picking on you. In fact, pain isn’t prejudiced and doesn’t hold any biases. Regardless of who you are, regardless of your economic status, regardless of your race — pain will touch you. It is the only real equal-opportunity employer.
So, what do you do with pain? The first thing you have to do is define it. You can define it as “something I will never, ever get over,” or you can define it as “an opportunity for growth and development.” It is up to you. Torrential rains fall on the rich and poor man’s harvest alike. The poor man weeps as he watches what the rain has destroyed. The rich man goes out into the fields to see what can be salvaged. If nothing can be salvaged, he plants a crop that can thrive in the new conditions.
When hit with hard times, our immediate response is to focus on the unfairness of it. This attitude is nonproductive and only serves to send your mind and emotions into a tailspin. If you’ve let yourself go there — stop! Take your power back! You can’t change what has already happened to you. You just have to be smart enough to know how to work with it and get the most out of it. You’re not cursed. You’re just going through the process of living and that involves some pain. And like it or not, it will probably be the very thing that will make you a better friend, listener and person. People who have experienced pain and dealt with it from a healthy perspective tend to be more sensitive to others and can connect on levels of intimacy that only come from experience.
DEFINING MOMENTS
If you fail to define your pain, you will spend the rest of your life allowing it to define you. Pain will not restrict itself to your immediate experience. Instead it will travel through time, forging a connection between the past and the future. Unless you deal with the effects of being in an abusive relationship, you will hear the negative voice of the past even though the promise of the present is speaking. The stench of pain from the past can overwhelm the fragrance of new love and possibility.
People who fail to deal with their pain live in a defensive mode — constantly on guard as they wait for the next disappointment. They are acutely aware of their own sensitivities and pains, but oblivious to those hurting around them. Quite often, their unresolved bitterness and anger becomes a source of abuse to others.
Pain distorts our emotional vision and impairs our ability to properly understand the situations of our lives. Pain is so powerful that it can feed the mind thoughts of fear that have no root in reality, but nevertheless paralyze our emotions. How many times have you cried after a fresh break-up? Your emotions were crushed, not only for the loss of the current relationship, but somewhere deep inside fear whispered that love would never find you again. It wasn’t true and isn’t true, but until you are stronger than the moment, you can’t expect anything from the future.
I wear eyeglasses and when I remove them my vision becomes blurry. Nothing is distinguishable and everything runs together. Pain affects our emotional senses in much of the same way. It hinders our ability to see life and people as they truly are by causing us to question our own value and worth. You can even lose sight of yourself — the most important person in your life! Decisions made in a pained state of mind are usually poorly thought out and hazardous. They can put your spiritual, emotional and physical life in jeopardy.
WHIP IT INTO SHAPE!
The most important thing that you must remember as you wrestle with the onslaught of pain is that it is usually temporary. Even if the pain is caused by something like the death of a loved one, your strength to manage it will increase as you face it. Pain struts onto the center stage of your life and tells you that you will never love again, trust again, be happy again or be the same again. Remind your pain that you are the author of your destiny. It has a role to play, but it won’t be the star of your life’s show!
The only way to direct the show of your life is to get a vision for your pain. You cannot allow pain to come into your life without determining that it will somehow benefit you. You must decide to find opportunity in everything! If you are in financial pain due to poor decisions, and now face the effects of negative credit and the shame of poor financial management, you can either hang your head down or you can get up, get a budget and get about the business of restoring your life. It will take time and effort, but you can do it. If you have lost a loved one, don’t dishonor their memory by shutting others out. Instead, spread the love and the lessons given to you by sharing with others.
Discipline is required to see the fulfillment of vision. Focusing on the bigger picture helps you to push beyond the current pain. I once worked with a personal fitness trainer. Having exhausted all my excuses as to why I couldn’t fit my clothes, I had to face reality. My clothes weren’t shrinking — I was expanding. On Mondays and Wednesdays, I disliked my trainer — not because of the person, but because of his mission. He pushed me beyond my limits — actually beyond my perceived limits. He forced me to dig deeper and discover strength and muscles that I didn’t even know existed. It hurt, but I saw results. You will see results if you don’t give in to the pain. There is more to you than you’ve discovered and the only way it will be revealed is through adversity. But the strength and power are there — the challenge only exposes who you really are!
Blur
Without my glasses,
It’s all a blur.
Things are fuzzy and I can’t really see.
I can see dimly,
And some things I can associate with,
But still I cannot truly see.
Colors have lost their sharpness,
As