Sometimes life knocks you down—there is no getting around that. What really matters for creating a happy life is how easy it is for you to get back up. Developing emotional resiliency keeps those challenges and hardships from overwhelming you. You recover more quickly from difficulties, and as a result, you'll live happily more days each month and year.
Unlike positive thinking, self-compassion , or gratitude—which can all be developed when things are going good or going bad—you need challenges in your life to develop resilience. You have to get knocked down in order to learn how to pick yourself back up. Over time, you’ll start to see that being knocked down makes you stronger—plus it makes you less afraid to get knocked down again.
I remember reading somewhere that we are all here on this earth to learn a lesson.
It’s one that is made for us, and only us. Like a special recipe concocted in the stars and implanted in our tiny developing foetus.
While it may sound a bit “woo-woo,” it was extremely comforting to read that.
For much of my life I would compare my life to others. I’d look at those who seemed to have it all together and wonder if they ever struggled. I felt envious as they seemingly sailed through life.
“Why do I have to deal with this and not them? What did I do wrong?”
But maybe they are not here to learn my lesson. They are here to learn theirs, whatever that might be.
While my life has been filled with typical ups and downs, it came to a crushing low when my sister died in 2013.
"If you are stressed out, then it is part of your meditation to become fully aware of being stressed out. Don’t make a big effort to push it aside, don’t try to be some other way. . . .The minute you embrace that fact, you will actually become less stressed and more awake." —Lewis Richmond,