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Difficulties… We all get kicked up the arse at some point in our lives

By Mary Alade
13 August 2016   |   4:11 am
Everywhere we look there seems to be some sort of misery, sorrow, sadness, distress… difficult times of some form or another. Personal difficulties can strike at any point in time be it in your job, health matters, with the children...

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Can Difficult Times Contribute to Becoming or Be the Beginnings of Good?
Everywhere we look there seems to be some sort of misery, sorrow, sadness, distress… difficult times of some form or another. Personal difficulties can strike at any point in time be it in your job, health matters, with the children, and in your relationships. At some point, something bad happens to everyone. In some instances, there is a lot you can do to prevent trouble from happening, but some are natural developments of our journey that life has a tendency to challenge us with. These blows are part of our life journey of which, hopefully, we learn from and come out wiser and stronger from the experience.

After all, why would anyone want to create unnecessary drama in life that will take them down the road of sadness? Surely, there is absolutely no need for such, and no one would want that, right?
There are several ways in which we deal with our difficulties, many of which are rather predictable. Sometimes we complain, we hide, and sometimes we use our own experiences or the experiences of others and bring about comparisons; for instance, someone is telling you about their own experience, and you think to yourself “wow, that’s terrible, wait till I tell you what happened to me” and so on.

The question here is how can you really determine and judge whose experience is the worst of the two, as your difficult time belongs solely to you yourself individually – you alone own it. However, there are many people who take the concept of ownership way to far by becoming secretive and hiding their difficulties through denial, pretence and even silence – they wrap it all up into a parcel of their choice – e.g. you got beaten up, lost your job, got divorced or maybe raped, but you tell next to no one, you want to pretend it did not happen. Accept humiliation, and the other challenges that come your way in life and don’t hide when faced with them? Learn and grow from them.

When you develop a positive mindset and deal with difficulties in same manner, chances are you will begin to see clearer how they contribute to becoming or being the beginnings of good to come in your life. Stop looking at your difficult periods in a negative light, but instead with a positive eye.

It all boils down to how we accept, attend to and handle “our difficulties” not just physically, but also within our minds. The truth is that, on different occasions we all get kicked up the arse at some point in our lives.

An Upside during Difficulties
By being open about the difficulties going on in your life does have an upside with some positive benefits such as helping you to process your emotions, which is a far sight better than just keeping them close to your chest and hoping that they’ll stay there. Another benefit is that it enables you to clearly show your attitude toward things and let’s people know what you want, like and just how much help you may or may not want.

For instance, when sorting out a particular matter, you may not appreciate a friend being a bright ray of sunlight and reassuring you with sincere and intense conviction, that everything shall be fine; but there again, you may not benefit from your friend’s excessive distressed concern along with their rather ear piercingly high pitched voice judging or deciding the matter for you, just going on and on about how terrible everything is. When you are going through difficult times, you tend to feel all alone. You feel far away from everyone and everything, possibly lacking contact with reality and life itself. During a time like this, try and let the people around you understand what you’re going through and maybe how they can support you. This way, their reaction and or response can be more favourable toward you.

Many people, when experiencing difficulties, deep down, do want much more attention from family and friends than they get already on a regular daily basis and by sharing the difficult period you are going through, you actually enable an opportunity to get the support you need from others, and albeit rather ironic, this is a time when you do get the emotional support, comfort, love, understanding and attention you need from them including the amount of space you may require during this time.

It is wise to be upfront and honest about whatever the difficulty you are experiencing at the time, for example, it could be a medical diagnosis you just found out about, a divorce you are going through or perhaps a debt you owe on etc, instead of cutting yourself off and or keeping things to yourself. When you keep things all to yourself, you are preventing yourself from having anything and everything you require the most of at the time. Be open and honest about your difficulties and welcome the benefits.

As the expression goes, “a problem shared is a problem halved” … at the very least it’s something to think about.

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