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Good or bad experiences, both can teach you some valuable lessons if you pay attention
Life brings you good things, but also there will be bad things happening along the way. Everything that's happening to you during your life, can teach you lessons. Although the bad things may first not feel like there can't come anything good out of that experience, after a while, when you started to heal or cope with that experience, you'll be able to see what you've learned from that specific part of your life. Some horrible experiences may possible teach you the greatest lessons of your life, in my case, that's certainly true. You have to be open to seeing the lessons too because when I look back, I remember not being aware of those lessons that I'd learned along the way. Self-reflection is a good way to gain new insights is my experience.
Let's start with the good experiences and their lessons that life brings
Many wonderful things may happen in your childhood and adult life, some of them may be bigger than others. But they all have one thing in common, that's the fact that it will bring you memories that you'll cherish the rest of your life. Also, good things may teach you great lessons. You've learned things in a good way, let's call this the easy way because compared to hardship in life, those lessons we usually recall to as: I've learned the hard way. It's of course, much more convenient to gain knowledge about life issues due to just studying, or talking to an experienced person that knows the ins and outs about certain matters. But that's not how life works, how lucky you may be or seem, every person will eventually come along challenging situations.
And that brings us to the lessons learned from negative experiences in our lives
The so-called, lessons you learned the hard way. When I think back about those experiences many years ago, I can almost certainly say that I did not see the advantage of that experience in the long run. I could only dwell in misery, asking myself how the hell I got stuck in this situation or how on earth I was going to get out of it. I could not find the strength to turn things around and even think outside of the box when finding a solution. With that said, it also meant that my negative experiences from my teen years and maybe part of adulthood first took a lot more time to overcome than they do nowadays. The fact that I can now say that I can turn things around easier and think outside of the box for a solution, was not possible if I didn't have those hardships in my earlier life. They've taught me how to handle the experiences better. And maybe it's also because some of the experiences came with plenty of advice from people that "know-it-all" which I then all tried, without getting the expected result, and therefore I learned to trust more and more on my own capabilities to seek for solutions. I didn't have any other choice I guess when time after time usually the solution came from my own research instead of other people's advice.
I learned to adapt quickly to my current situation
Now let me be completely honest, that this started in a non-pleasant period of my life. When I fled to a women's shelter with my two oldest children I learned to live in a small room with two children. And from that moment on I have been in worse situations (homeless) some not too convenient options, but still much better than the worst we've been in, and currently, I can probably say we have the best situation after years of struggling. We have lived with family members for a brief period, and we've lived with strangers when we went volunteering. Both options have their pro's and cons. But both options also demand you adapt to your host's rules, therefore you have to be flexible. I'm not impressed that much any longer when we go somewhere and we find a shitty hotel/hostel/apartment room, I may complain a bit, and then I let it go, and we can have a good time anyway. We have been living out of our suitcase for almost four months after arriving in Budapest, and we survived perfectly, so we were probably double as happy that we found this apartment after those months. All these changes and having to adapt constantly (because we had no other choice and were depending on third parties to get us forward) are the reason that other things are not that challenging anymore. If you'd put me in some situations 4 years ago (for example) I can honestly say that I wouldn't have managed to get to the solution as I can do at this point in my life. So even when you have to live in not too convenient or preferable living circumstances, this can mean that after a few years these challenges have taught you great things for the future. So was it really that bad?
Maybe this post focusses a bit more on the negative experiences
Maybe that's because most people (including myself) take the lessons learned the easy way for granted, while they are, of course, just as important as the other lessons. But I would like to make more people aware of the fact, that whenever you feel like you're in a situation you can't overcome, there is a solution out there. Maybe not the one you'd expect, and maybe not even one that's close to what you would desire, but that doesn't mean that solution is not for you. Let me take my own drastic decisions as an example.
I always said that there was no way I was going on a holiday to Spain, I had some not nice holidays when I was younger, and I didn't fancy Spain at all. But while going through the most difficult period of our lives, Spain was the solution to get out of there. I've laughed about it a lot while enjoying the beauty and silence of rural Spain, looking at the stars all night. Thinking of the fact, that one year before I would not even go on a normal holiday there, and look at me now. Spain gave me back to me, I learned to be me again, and it has given me the opportunity to learn a lot of new things, to deal with challenging situations. And eventually, I even found a job there so we even settled down in Spain. This drastic change in our lives would have never been possible if I was not allowing myself to think outside of the box, and be open to new things and ideas. The only demands I had when looking for a volunteering address, were that we could buy a cheap ticket, and the weather would be nice. I looked in many countries in Europe, but Spain gave so many opportunities, and guess what? I wouldn't have wanted to miss it for the world!
Does all the above mean that bad experiences have gained me more wisdom during my life?
No, not at all. Because when I look back on the moments that I came out of my comfort zone those moments have brought me so many new insights and inspiration for many things. Not only did they broaden my horizon a lot, and changed my view on the world in many ways, I also opened up for new inspiration to create things. Slowly my plans for the future came back, and could I think of a step by step process to achieve things since years, which was a great improvement coming from the situation I was in just months before that, because back then I acted out of fear. And we all know, fear is not your best advisor... Once I stepped out of my comfort zone, this slowly shifted to the background and all of the sudden my main priority that day wasn't any longer to get through the day with as little fear as possible, but my priority was to enjoy the little things together with my boyfriend and baby.
Slowly gaining more confidence in my own capabilities
While the first period (doing volunteer work) I was purely focussing on the mental state and making progress to feel like me again, once we settled down I felt more confident to actually get back to work again. And surprisingly, I found a job only weeks after my first application was sent out. Thanks to a referral in the company I got noticed even though I didn't have the experience nor diplomas for the job! This made me feel so empowered again. You see? I can do this, and when days passed, I gain more confidence and felt better every day. This is the greatest feeling, to believe in yourself again after several people have tried to destroy your whole life for several years in a row. I was stronger than all of them, maybe I didn't have the powers or money they had, and still, I got through it (with my boyfriend's help!!) and see where I stand now. The mind is powerful, I'm a perfect example of that. Only five months before I got hired for a new job in a new country (without the diploma's and experience for that job) I only wanted to die, and I didn't see any way out of the situation, and now I felt on top of the world again.
When that all didn't work out due to my accident
That sucked, and yes I've cried a lot, but not because of feeling like a failure, I cried because of my pain. We were smart enough to settle down in a very very cheap apartment total costs with utilities only a little over 300 euro every month, so I knew that whatever would happen, this was easy to overcome by earning via the internet or other ways. My boyfriend also still had his client list from his former company to contact if they needed remote computer support. The first months I still received my salary (100%) and after three months they fired me (while in sick law which was actually illegal) but when I found out that the government would pay me (70%) as long as I was in sick law, I didn't fight the company because it was too much stress and stress meant more pain. I accepted the fact that this was the way it was going to be, and I used my skills gained in Holland living on a low budget to get through the months. We were fine and had been set for worse challenges.
I discovered that there was a way to earn via blogging
Not on Steemit, didn't know that at the time. I worked my ass of blogging on a Dutch platform that a friend pointed out to me, the same day I joined and I started networking and building a follower base. I had never written a blog before in my life, I only had written a lot for myself and my book for the future, so writing on the internet was all new to me. But within a few months, I did very well there and I had many posts with a good amount of views. On top of that, I made sure to dive deep into the challenges that sometimes could be worth 10 or maybe 25 euro per achieved goal. And this way I soon had about 100 euro extra a month (sometimes more, sometimes less). In our situation this was enough because this was extra, we could already survive from what I got from the state easily. At that moment that I realised how quickly I achieved to be a somebody on that platform (where others were blogging daily for two years already without having more than 50 views a post), I gained even more confidence in my own capabilities. I was not about to start writing more and more for my future plans, to achieve the goal of finishing my book. As you can see even though the accident had ruined a part of my lower back, and caused me daily pain, I still managed to turn this into something positive, because being in sick law also gave me the possibility to write. And that's actually when I discovered a whole new part of myself. So overall that has been a good thing.
Conclusion
I have grown a lot over the last years, I learned how to deal with things much better emotionally. I recognize when emotions are getting the best of me, and I'm mostly aware of when it's happening. When I notice it, I shift my focus to something else for a bit, until I found back a balance in my emotional well being so that I can see things from a different perspective. This has made my life a lot easier and gives a sense of relief. It gave me the power to turn many things into something positive, and overcoming the negative doesn't cost me as much time as it used to. Sometimes I'm even able to see what the positive lesson can be while going through something difficult. And by focussing on that part, the positive that is, you will find that the solution is often nearby.
Do you have similar experiences? Did you handle hardship in your life different some years ago, then you are now? And are you also able to turn negative into something positive? I'd love to hear your thoughts!
