Where am I going with this?

As I laid in bed last night thinking about this blog, I asked myself, where am I going with this? I know I need to be able to answer this question in order for this blog to be successful and for it to have meaning for me and for anyone else out there that may benefit from my experiences.

If you have suffered any form of trauma, whether it was abuse, major medical issues, loss, or just anything that caused you pain I can bet you have asked yourself why? Why you? What is the purpose? How can I ever be happy again? I have as well. When I ask myself those questions I lean on my faith. As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, we are taught that trials and tribulations can be turned around for the good. What can you learn? What good can you find out of the bad?

I feel that I am an eternal optimist. I live my life with a glass half full. I look for the silver lining in all things unpleasant. And no, that does not make me gullible or naive. I know bad things will happen, but I chose to find the good and when I can’t find the good, then I create my own good. Give purpose to your pain. Sometimes the knowledge of the good in our trials doesn’t come quickly and in fact, it seems like it will never get there, but in the meantime you can give purpose to your pain.

What I mean is purposely MAKE something good come out of the bad. Take your pain and use it to benefit others. Sometimes you can do that by just being an empathetic ear to someone who is suffering just as you did. You don’t have to have any answers because when people are hurting, sometimes they don’t want answers. They aren’t in a place where they can process answers, they are just in a place where they need an ear to hear them. Not just physically hear the words, but to HEAR them and feel their pain. Once you have been through trauma you change. You can be that person. It takes strength to do that, but you can.

I have been through abuse as a child as well as a verbally and emotionally abusive marriage to a narcissist. During these trials I didn’t understand. I pleaded with God to help me know why I had to go through these things. I felt like I was a good person so why was I being punished? Individual to each persons faith there is an answer to that, but for me personally I realized that I was not being punished. The people on this earth have free agency to act and do hurtful things to others. How we survive is all in how we respond.

The next big piece of advise that I can give anyone is to not hate. I know that is tall order, especially in cases of abuse, but I can guarantee that you are only hurting yourself by hating. By hating, you are continuing to give your transgressor power over you. You must cut that power off immediately. Anger is like a plague that runs through you and is sapping you of all the good that is inside of you. Hate only hurts you. Coretta Scott King says it best. She said, “Hate is too great a burden to bear. It injures the hater more than it injures the hated.” I can’t tell you enough how true this is. For a long time I hated the person that hurt me as a child. I hated him so bad that is almost killed me. It almost took my life. It consumed my life for many years, until I was able to let go of the hate and to work towards forgiveness.

At the end of the day, what I want people to know is that there are ways to survive, but more importantly thrive once you have been through trauma or even if you just keep getting knocked down time after time. I have been knocked down and I have my time period of self pity, but I know my worth and I know that the strength is in me to get up, gain what I lost plus more and come out on the other end better than I was when I got knocked down.

So, to answer my question of “Where am I going with this?”, the answer is this…I want to share the things I have learned in the past and show you that in this present and future journey how you and I are going to succeed because of these things I am sharing.