When storms pass through our lives we are usually dealt with some emotional clean up to do. During the period of healing we are often shell shocked and broken, causing us to unintentionally hurt others who had nothing to do with situation that traumatized us. But what if we went into that emotional clean up period FULLY aware of our potential to hurt others, and then made conscious efforts to not? What if we chose to heal by helping others currently navigating what we just came through? Hurt people don’t always have to hurt people. This is my perspective on a healthier way to move forward on the other side of chaos.

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I have a solid belief that has really anchored me during chaotic moments in my life and I feel it has helped me manage storms in a more graceful manner. I constantly say to myself, “Nothing you go through is just for you. Take this experience and help others.” Most of my blog posts surround REAL LIFE experiences I have maneuvered, the lessons I learned as I went through them, and the gratitude for the glow up I earned on the other side. I feel so comfortable sharing my hardships and mistakes made because if I can help one person with my experience, I am accomplishing my goal. I firmly believe my purpose on this planet is to grow through what I go through and then help others with my knowledge. It is a passion I will never waver from. Too often in my life I have looked for someone brave enough to share their truth with me so I could get insight into a current problem, only to find those who would rather feel sorry for me or try to rescue me from lessons I was meant to learn. A dear friend always says “See a need, fill a need.” So here I am!

There are a few ways people handle themselves when going through the harder times in life. There is the classic “I was hurt so now everyone else needs to hurt as much as I am” type. These people, either intentionally or subconsciously, lash out and hurt others around them. Many times these people have trudged through a difficult situation by holding onto anger and that fire pushed them through to the other side. Yes, they came through but they didn’t look for or learn the lessons they were meant to, and it is very possible they had lived through a situation similar in the past. They are tired of the same bullshit popping up in their lives and have developed a vicim mentality. In turn, this is where we get the phrase I referenced above “Hurt people, hurt people.” They are not understanding why the same issues repeat over and over so they take their frustration and hurt out on those around them. My advice to these people is to PLEASE begin seeing the lessons in the situations you are sick of living through! Stop taking YOUR trauma out on people who didn’t cause your pain. Believe me, there will come a time where you look around and all those people will be gone because YOU have pushed them away.

We then have the people who are hit with less than desirable circumstances and immediately are trying to find someone or something to blame for it. These types are too busy trying to find someone to payback or get revenge on and take no accountability for the actions they had which brought them to where they currently are. Again, anger has carried them through the chaos but no lessons were learned. I use to be this type and looking back, I could find blame in just about everyone. I had visions of lawsuits, revengeful acts, social media blasts, and ruining of reputations. Sure, that felt good in the moment but if any of those things came into fruition, I felt like major shit afterwards. My advice to these people is put down your anger for a minute and instead, reflect. It is very possible that someone or something wronged you which is sucky. That being said, are you stronger? Did you learn something about yourself? Did you conquer the wrong? Are you OK now? Again, PLEASE look for those lessons! Revenge won’t make you feel good BUT sharing information to help others conquer a similar entanglement sure feels gratifying. When you adopt this mindset, you soften and your focus becomes making things easier on others rather than on destroying what hurt you. ( Being real, you are ONE PERSON and the chance of you taking down an entire system or group is pretty low. You can however give others advice and that may create a chain of people who pass that along. You have then, in a backdoor way, gotten your revenge in a healthy way.)

Fact is, we all go through moments of discomfort and chaos in our lives. Those moments are not just happening to make you miserable and disrupt the smooth sailing you had before the hammer came down. Life, believe it or not, is not out to get you and does not just have a goal to make you miserable. I think that if you look back on your most chaotic moments, you will see how you grew in some way. We DO NOT grow when things are wonderful! We DO NOT grow when things are smooth sailing! We MUST have those rough and uncomfortable moments in our lives or we will stay stagnant in growth. When we find that growth mindset we also find compassion for those around us. We no longer are oblivious to the hurt we cause with our own trauma and we find revenge unacceptable. We recognize the lessons, we find where we contributed to the madness, we learn from our actions and those of others, we see the growth we made, we begin to find gratitude for the shit situation, and then we HELP, NOT HURT!

Looking back on the 40 years I spent with a vicim mindset makes me want to start searching for those who I hurt because nobody told me what I have typed here and what I preach regularly. On the same note, I also know that you can’t do better until you know better. This is what brings me here. A recent situation has me reflecting a lot on how important it is to not judge the ways we behaved in the past before we knew those behaviors were wrong or misguided. I am in the process of the reflections and look forward to sharing the lessons in the near future. In the meantime, I have been trying to pass on the mini lessons along the way to not only see that growth to help heal myself, but to also drop nuggets of information to help others on their journey. You now KNOW better so you can BE better! It is a beautiful thing to come out on the other side of a storm and have the full ability to plant flowers to grow in the sunshine that always comes out afterwards. These blog posts are those flowers and I am so grateful you take the energy to stop and smell them.

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