People all over the world are experiencing extreme change; job loss, lifestyle changes, ending relationships, illness or death of a loved one. In my case it was all of the above. The past few years have been the most challenging for me. But they also have been the most rewarding. The following is what has helped me handle things when my life seemed to be falling apart. I hope it will help people in their time of struggle.
- Change is always for the better. Ofcourse it does not not seem like it when you are in the middle of the crises. This truth was hard for me to grasp when I lost my home and my job. But the worse of it was that there were days I did not know how I would feed my son. I had to go to the churches and ask for charity. My employer did not want to release the umemployment money so I had no income for seven months. Being a single mom, this added more pressure to the situation. I once heard that in order to rebuild a better foundation, everything that is no longer meeting your soul requirements has to fall apart first. Which is exactly what happened to me. It is too long a list of all of the wonderful things that have happened to me since then, but one of the most important to me is that somehow the events were synchronized to provide a haven for me to finally take the time to heal emotional wounds I was not even aware I had. Before losing my job, I was a workaholic. I worked full time and went to school full time. Prior to my son being born there were months I worked from 7:00am to 11:00pm every day. Now I understand I was doing this to suppress emotional pain. Looking back I see that since I was neglecting my healing, my soul had to do something to cause for me to finally face my wounds.
- Everything in life happens for you not to you and also for the greatest benefit of all concerned. This was another truth that was hard for me to understand. Especially after sacrificing so many years away from my son to earn a living, going to school for a teaching degree and credential to end up losing my job and find out that the state of CA has a freeze in hiring teachers until who knows when. Needless to say I was angry, afraid and depressed. While I would not wish what I went through on anyone, some gifts did come out of my ugly situation. One of them was I got to homeschool my son and spend lots of time with him. It did not make up for the time lost ofcourse, but it helped me heal my regrets of not being around much when he was younger. Even when I was around I was so exhausted I was not there mentally nor emotionally. Another of the gifts is that I came across Life Coaching which is my true calling. I would not have discovered my passion if I had still been working where I was working or got hired as a teacher. There were many more gifts I received, which I will write about some other time. But there was also the gift I gave my cousin. When I lost my home my cousin openned her home to my son and I. I felt bad at first because I knew she was going through financial challenges herself. One night she shared with me that I saved her from her depression. She was actually contemplating suicide prior to me moving in. Helping me until I got settled gave her something else to focus on. Plus the reassuring talks we had many times helped her relieve her anxiety attacks which she also suffered from. She told me that my son I were not a burden, but a gift to her. Plus living with her helped me bring back my joy and laughter. She is hilarious when she is her normal healthy self.
- Suffering is an illusion and is caused by your thoughts about the challenges you are experiencing. For a long time I felt angry when I heard this. I would think, "Yeah, well the pain is very real when your son ask you what we are eating tomorrow and you have no idea." But I learned that there is a difference between pain and suffering. Pain is an experience while suffering is a judgement made about the experience. The suffering I was going through was caused by my thoughts: "This should not be happening. I have worked my ass off all my life and this is what I get, can't even feed my son. I gave these people (my former employer) so much of my time and bent over backwards to please them. This is how I am repaid? They said my son and I were like family to them, you do not treat family this way. They said they were devout Christians, they sure are not being very Christlike. This truly sucks!! I worked just as hard, if not harder than my siblings to get a degree, they ended up being financially successful and I end up not being able to even get a job in my chosen career path." Pain is very real to us humans. Some people say pain is not real either. But I have to say that the pain I experienced when my father died was very real. The difference is that when pain comes you accept it, feel it, then when you are ready you let it go. With suffering, you are thinking about what the pain means. Rehashing it over and over. For example, my suffering was caused by thinking that because I could not get a job like my brothers did after they graduated, I was a loser. Or I was a bad mom for not being able to protect my son from knowing the situation we were in.
If you would like more information on how to handle life changes please contact me on Facebook. The first session is always free and it may be all that you need to put your life back together again. You could also visit the site forums below I regularly participate in.
www.divinecaroline.com
www.ivillage.com
www.blogher.com
www.first30days.com
http://changingchange.net
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