There is no textbook written about how to keep it together when our world is falling apart. Yet for all the curveballs life throws at us, there should be libraries filled with books teaching us how to duck so that we don’t get knocked out.
This is a story about transformation and personal growth. Although pain and suffering appear to be the vehicles through which the transformation occurred, the heart of the story lies in the choices we make as a result of what happens to us, rather than in the details of what happens to us.
Few of us know for certain what our futures hold. When we are young, we have a naive feeling of invincibility. We believe that everything is possible, and our destiny holds within itself the quality of magic. As youths, the concept of time has little meaning. If anything, we feel as though time stands still, and we become impatient with its pace. As we age, we realize how quickly time moves and wish we could slow it down. We often try to bargain just to get a little bit more of it.
But what would happen if we got sick? What if we were diagnosed with a life-threatening illness? What if there was no guarantee that we would be alive six months or a year from now? What would the concept of time mean to us then? When we fall ill, the idea of time takes on a whole new meaning. Every second becomes increasingly precious, and the thought of any of it being taken away leaves us frightened and breathless. So many questions race through our minds. What will happen to my family if I die? Who will raise my kids? Will I become a burden to the ones I love most? Will I suffer? Initially, everyone rallies around and support is high. But what about afterwards? What happens if the illness doesn’t just go away? What happens when life returns to normal for everyone except for you? How do you simply get on with it? These are some of the issues that I will discuss in the chapters ahead.
When we become sick, we desperately try to find our footing. We look everywhere we can for guidance. Doctors become our allies, and we hunt for tools and strategies to help us make it through. I don’t know why some people appear to have a greater capacity to cope than others. Perhaps they are the ones who become our beacons of hope and our inspiration. If they can make it, then we might be able to as well! In this book, I will share some of the tools and strategies I used to help me navigate my way toward health and well-being.
My journey led me on an accelerated path of learning. It forced me to go back to school and helped me to acquire the skills I desperately needed to survive. With the knowledge I gained, I opened up a private practice to help those who are suffering find meaning and joy in their lives, irrespective of circumstance. This story is told from two perspectives: from that of a patient as well as that of a therapist.
Only once I finished writing this book did I realize how long and how deeply I had suffered. Had anyone told me that I would have to deal with physical, mental, and emotional pain for more than thirty years, I would have told them to count me out. No sane person would intentionally sign up for a life like that. Yet in the midst of all I suffered, what awed me most was the fact that I never lost, at least not for very long, my capacity to feel the joy, the beauty, and the sacredness of life. I discovered within myself an internal resilience that I had never recognized before. My experiences led me to understand that my ability to keep bouncing back was instrumental in keeping me alive. It is my hope that from reading this book you will discover, as I did, your own potential and capacity for resilience.
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Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary defines resilience as “an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change.” I am not sure about the easy adjustment part, but the ability to adapt to difficult times often helps us live richer and more productive lives, even when dealing with the unexpected. We are far more capable than any of us might have ever imagined. It is incredible how we somehow seem to find a strength that we never knew existed when confronted with circumstances not of our choosing. Hope, faith, and the belief in possibility have been and are key in helping me keep my head above water.
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An anonymous author once wrote: “Everything was once and for a time a dream. The tree lies in the acorn. The bird waits in the egg. The butterfly becomes in the cocoon. Dreams are the seedlings of reality.”
I invite you to dare to dream with me, so that you too may open yourself up to the endless possibilities that exist for all of us. For the essence of life, after all, lies not in what is broken but in what we can create.