"OUT OF THE DARKNESS" POST 75

Enjoy each day to the fullest.  Those moments will never happen again.  Everything, and I do mean everything, is a once in a lifetime experience. This is your life, friends. It is your time; your chance to do everything you want to do.  Your interactions and situations, both positive and negative, shape your perspective, understanding and growth throughout your lifetime.  Your personal relationships and how you learn and grow from them are a very important part of your life perspective.  They determine very much how you view the world and your place within it.  Each person's unique journey creates a tapestry of memories, lessons and growth.  Your work, hobbies, travel and challenges are all integral parts of that tapestry.  Learning new skills build up your perspective on what your life will look like and how you plan to accomplish certain goals you have set for yourself.  Exploring new cultures different from your own, new places and experiences will go far in broadening your horizons;  I believe meeting new people in different parts of the world would open up our eyes; seeing how others live their lives different from the way we do.  

The most important decision you'll make about every life experience is the meaning you assign to it.  Sometimes, we transform facts into fiction and

confuse fiction with truth.  All of us have problems.  In almost all cases, they are temporary.  However, alot of the time we consider them permanent. It is just human nature.  Thinking in this way can keep us from living the life we want to live.  This doesn't mean it's not going to hurt when someone breaks your heart, or that it won't suck to fail at something you care about.  It does not mean you won't grieve over your losses.  It just means we have a choice in what we make it all mean.  

When we experience romantic rejection we tend to default our narrative to 'something must be wrong with me'; that we aren't good enough, smart enough or we are deficient in some way.  

When we experience professional rejection we assume that we are the problem and nothing else.  It leaves us with a fixed mindset instead of a growth mindset and it limits our potential.  How you interpret rejection is everything.  

Failure is a necessary part of every risk you take.  There are two options to choose when rejected:

I suck, or

What did I learn from this?

The second allows you to transform your adversity.

Wallowing in self pity in the midst of failure can blind you to the possibilities on the other side of it.

Adversity is what enables us to

develop grit and resistence.  You develop a tolerance for pain only by going through it.  As your threshold for pain increases, your capacity for taking on the greater challenges does as well.

The things which can stunt recovery from setbacks are personalization; the belief that we are at fault, pervasiveness; believing an event will affect all areas of our life, and permanence; the belief that an event will last forever.

In good times and bad, in moments of grief and moments of joy, writing has been healing for me.  Writing allows reflection on your life experiences.  It will allow a much more enlightened perspective on every experience that happens to you.