When Life throws Curveballs at you: Do you get Bitter or Better?

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Life is totally unpredictable. It has a way of throwing curveballs at you when you least expect it. What do you do when life decides to throw the whole works at you? Do you get mired in your negative experience or do you have the resilience to spring back to your feet?


Some personal experiences can be hurtful

Sometimes, all you need is some understanding, empathetic witness who will guide you back to your feet. Some experiences are so harrowing that it takes you a long while to shake it off.

Again, some experiences are so painful no matter how long ago in the past the experiences took place, they hit you with such pain and vehemence as if it were only yesterday. Have you ever had any one of those? I sure had one.

My hurtful personal experience

I remember when I lost my second son to ripple tides. Yes, you heard me right. It was 2003. K was a chip off the old block. A miniature version of me in every sense! He and his two other brothers were billed to go for a retreat from the church. I offered to drop them off but the church asked me not to bother. They informed me that they had covered all the bases. The children would travel in a group and be taken care of by church appointed adult chaperons.

They went. They had their retreat and on their way back, they decided to have a dip in the sea, in the full gaze of adult chaperons. The boys took off their clothes and jumped into swirling waves. The ripple tides rolled all three of them away. Two of my boys clambered out. K was nowhere to be found. He had been swept away by ripple tides.

It took my wife and I, coast guards, an air search crew five agonizing days to find K’s badly decomposed body. He was presented to us in a coffin! We were denied access to our beloved son’s body. That further deepened the ache in our hearts.

How deep was your experience?

Your experience may not have been as deep as mine. Maybe you got jilted by a lover and you suffer from the pain of rejection and that makes you distrust every potential lover. Or you could have been abandoned by one or both of your parents and given up for adoption. That made you grow up without the love and closeness of a biological parent and that makes you feel cranky. You become naturally embittered by these experiences.

Be Compassionate

The first thing you need to do is be compassionate with yourself. Being compassionate with yourself means you don’t spend all the time beating yourself up for some experience you could not have helped anyway. I remember how long it took me to forgive myself for not going to pick up my kids. It took forever. My inability to forgive myself made me relive the experience over and over again with all the pain and frustration.

Stop rehashing your negative experiences. It is not helpful to you. Instead, reframe your past experience. Look at that negative experience from a new and positive perspective.

Reframe your negative Experiences

Did one of your parents or both of them abandon you at a tender age? Be grateful for the experience. It taught you to become who you are. It gave you the sense of independence and can-do attitude that you now have.

Did your lover walk out on you? Instead of feeling dejected, flip the script and be grateful for the experience. Maybe you are who you are because of the absence of your lover in your life. Who knows, he or she could have been a roadblock to your success.

Things happen for You…………...

Believe that whatever happens is for you and not to you. Look at your past with gratitude, and not anger. Develop a victor mentality, not a victim mentality. You do not want to be that grumpy man or woman everybody wants to avoid:

“There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow human being; true nobility is being superior to your former self.” Ernest Hemingway

From now going forward, whenever you face hardship, immediately say,” This is happening for me and not to me.

True Confession

It's been seventeen long years since my son passed away. I must confess I am still struggling with the loss. The pain has become duller with the passage of time but it's still there. It's now become the case of,"Physician heal thy self".

Would any one with a similar experience want to share their stories and help me reframe this experience.



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Recent Comments

34

I'm late to the game of catching blog posts while they're still fresh so as I scramble through the many that I'm flagged to look at most get scanned and not much more. A few catch my attention and demand that I read every word at normal pace. This blog was one of them.
Thank you for sharing.

It's better late.....than never. It's pretty flattering to learn that my posts catch your attention. I appreciate.

Hi Dada ... it's good to talk ... I can easily empathise with your story although won't pretend I understand what you went through. The experience must have been devastating at the time for you, your wife, and especially for Ks brothers.

When my wife collapsed and died with an aneurysm in October of 2008 the only blessing was that the doctor said she almost certainly didn't know it was happening.

I remember the next few hours in vivid detail although they seemed like 10 minutes. The following few weeks are a blur. Memories of that period are all mixed up. I do remember having an uncharacteristic temper tantrum aimed at a hesitant car driver and a few arguments with very good friends. I was part time angry and part time kind of numb.

I am not a religious person, but one of my friends was a Church of England vicar who my wife and I had known for some years before we were married. He refused to precide over our wedding because he knew very well that both of us were pretty much agnostic and didn't attend any church.

I was a professional musician at the time and happened to be performing in a concert in Winchester Cathedral in the south of England the night before our wedding. What we didn't know was that my vicar friend, the Reverand David, had recently been appointed as Dean of Winchester Cathedral and had arranged for the concert. He surprised us in the middle of the concert and offered a blessing for our marriage. Despite our lack of religion, it is a wonderful memory. 33 years later I asked him to help with Pat's funeral. This time he didn't hesitate to say yes.

I had no idea what to do or think about a funeral. David convinced me to focus on celebrating Pat's life as opposed to mourning her death. At first this felt like a cop-out to me... but he knew us both well, I trusted him and listened. I realised she would not have wanted us to be miserable. So we focused on her strengths, weaknesses and mainly good memories. We celebrated the essence of her life. He convinced me that we were lucky to have had the time we had together. He was right. This approach worked extraordinarily well. I will never forget.

I was lucky enough to re-marry in 2011. My second wife is from Portugal (a land of great weather, scenery and excellent wine) where we have been fortunate to be living for the last few years.

I learned that the old saying: 'the only certainty in life is change', is a truism. Being prepared to accept change when it occurs is a key life skill.

I properly learned (moved on from just intellectually knowing) to make the most of each day and to never take relationships for granted. It taught me that we never know when relationships might end.

My mindset shifted; for years I had been saying that I loved to help people achieve what they wanted. I now walk the talk.

I think that's enough of this self-indulgent rambling.

I hope you carry with you what good memories you have and that the life K lived can be an inspiration to you all.

With love
Richard

Thank you for sharing your story of loss of a loved one. It takes one who has had a first hand experience with death of a loved one to be able to empathize with a loss like mine.
The loss of your first wife taught you a better appreciation of life and relationships...............and hopefully, God!
I find your story uplifting and I am grateful to you.

As David used to say: “Go well”.
Richard

This almsot made me cry. I can relate one of it. Yes, one of my parents did abandon us but, because of that I need to be strong for my siblings and my mom. I need to develop independence but much more more compassionate with myself. Thank you for this wondeful post.

I am glad you found some comfort from my narrative. It is noteworthy that you rose above your family's circumstances and you are on track to make your dreams come true. You have taken great strides and I applaud you for the results you have achieved so far

I am sorry to hear about loss.

Luckily I am not in that position yet. I have no kids yet. However I met my soul-mate only a week ago and we are planning marriage, kids and a long life together. If I lost either wife and kids for whatever reason, I would be devastated.

Thank you so much. It's so devastating to lose a child no matter how many you have. I wish you a happy married life.

Thank you for a beautiful and very courageous post Dada. I learnt so much from it. I am going through challenging situations with kids at the moment but your post made me realise that they are still with me and I need to be grateful for that, I am sorry for your loss.

Deep pain makes us more compassionate human beings which the world needs so much and we can be of more service to others, but the loss remains.

Thank you for sharing.

God bless
Marelise

Thank you Marelise. Please enjoy your kids while you have them no matter how disagreeable they turn out to be.
The pain of the loss of a loved one dulls with the passage of time but the loss remains.

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