Building Emotional Strength
“It is worth remembering that the times of greatest gain in terms of wisdom and inner strength is often that of greatest difficulty” - Dalai Lama
Today I read a quote on instagram by Dr. Adi Jaffe and it said “You never lose. You either win or you learn.” That really spoke to me. I considered doing a post about this concept before but I wasn’t entirely sure how I would do it…
But now I think got it. Appreciating the bad. I never want anything bad to happen. I never want to have my heart broken, I never want to be excluded, I never want to fail, I never want to get sick, I never want to be made fun of. I never want to feel the hurtful emotions that come with these “bad” experiences. However, after experiencing some of these things, I really genuinely appreciate that they happened to me. I am not saying that I enjoyed these difficult times what so ever. But I appreciate and love the qualities in myself that have derived from my hardships.
After being excluded and feeling so hurt by an experiences like that, I have come to be so aware of trying to make everyone feel included. I love that I can be the person that I needed when I was younger. I now have the awareness and the tools to actually impact someone positively after going through these challenging experiences. This is not to say that I wasn’t aware or being inclusive prior to these experiences, but when you struggle and are hurt you gain a deeper insight and understanding. And at the end of the day isn’t that what we all want?
It is almost the same with building muscle, we go to the gym and intentionally make our bodies tremble knowing that as a result we will come out with stronger muscles. It doesn’t always feel good doing a plank for 3 minutes right? It hurts. And no child would pick having broccoli or spinach for dessert over ice cream. But for the people who understand what these amazing green superfoods do for their bodies, they do choose to eat broccoli over ice cream, well maybe not over ice cream but in addition to.
People eat healthy foods and workout everyday not necessarily because that is what they want to eat or do, but because they have an understanding of what they gain as a result. Maybe we need to step back and try and understand what positive qualities and understandings we can gain from emotionally struggling.
Additionally, I don’t think every situation that involves emotionally struggling can be turned good. But in many situations if you look for a silver lining you can find one!
My advice to you is not to jump into a relationship and try and have your heart broken or intentionally fail a test. But if and when you do struggle emotionally, appreciate the experience and try your hardest to get all the good qualities you can out of it. It is not happening to you, it is happening for you and how wonderful is that? You will be more capable, wiser, and kinder because of your hardships. So again “You never loose.” because you are always winner!
Love Always,
Casey
