Growing Through Something Difficult

I’m all about changing the language I use every day to reflect a positive life and positive communication with myself. For most of my life, my default place was a negative space, I would tell people I was cursed and that’s why things were always going wrong in my life, or things were so dark. The truth is, it was the result of the choices I was making and how I was living my life. It took me hitting a really hard bottom and some serious work after to realize that. But I’ve walked this path of self-love and positivity for many years, and my life today is far beyond what I could have imagined, or even hoped for back in those dark years, and I make a conscious effort to speak in a way that is healing and nurturing to my journey.

I heard someone this week say she was “growing” through a difficult time, instead of saying “going” through a difficult time, something I’ve said many times in my life when I may be walking through a patch that is more challenging, and I’ve always grown through those times, in fact, that’s when I grow the most, but it never occurred to me to change that one word in that statement to reflect what is really going on, and, changing a negative into something positive.

No matter what we are going through, we are meant to go through it, and there’s always a reason for it, typically it’s growth. Those things that come along and challenge us prepare us for what’s coming next, or, may be showing us where in the wrong place and prompting us to make change, but there is growth in that. When we work to change our perspective to see those challenging times as an opportunity to grow we start to look for the growth in what we’re going through, not look at it as something bad that is happening to us we’re just trying to get through. If we are always just trying to “get through” it, we’re not taking away the growth or lesson in it, and, that situation will keep happening until we get it, so, why not “get it” the first time and move on? We can’t control what life is going to throw at us, but we can control how we deal with it and react to it, and by just changing that, and looking for the positive in those situations, we are able to take some control in how things will go from there because if you’re able to get out the situation what you need to that situation will not come back around again, or at least, happen less, because sometimes the universe likes to see if we really did learn what we should have and it throws us a situation similar, or the same, just to check, and if we did grow and learn so that next time should be easier because you are now making better choices.

Changing our language, what we say, and how we speak to ourselves, is the difference of working through something you label as negative, or an opportunity to grow, and wouldn’t we rather have an opportunity over a negative experience? We have the power to change a negative to an opportunity, and that in itself is already a positive. Look for the opportunities in your life to grow rather than just trying to get through a difficult time and see the difference that makes as you “grow” through your next difficult time. SLAY on!

SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you tend to focus on the negative? When something is happening that you’ve labeled negative, do you let it get you down or begrudgingly go through it? If you do look at those experiences as difficult, how do you think they might change if you changed your outlook into one of growth, rather than punishment? Thinking back to your last challenging time, what growth do you think came out of it? And, how do you think you’ve used what you learned after coming through that? How do you think you’ll use it in the future? If that same, or similar, experience were to come again, how could you use what you learned to handle it differently? Life is a journey of learning and growth, it can be an adventure if we choose to look at it that way, and when we do, no matter what comes our way, we can look at it as just another opportunity to grow.

S – self L – love A – appreciate Y – you