By 1 STORY THAT WILL MAKE YOU FEEL LESS ALONE WITH YOUR PROBLEMS
By Marc & Angel Chernoff
It may not seem like it right now, but better days are coming. The test always comes before the merit. The struggle always precedes the strength. You have to endure breakdowns to break through them. Take it one day at a time and trust the journey. It will make sense, soon enough.
Of course, it takes a while to get comfortable with it all…
I was lucky enough to have a very wise grandmother who coached me through my overwhelming feelings of hopelessness when I was just a teenager. And I was smart enough to write a journal entry about the conversation I had with her, so I could remember her wisdom decades later. Let me give you a little taste of that conversation:
I sat there in her living room staring at her through teary eyes. “I feel lost and alone and completely out of my mind,” I said. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
“Why do you feel that way?” she delicately asked.
“Because I’m neurotic and self-conscious and regretful, and so much more all at once,” I said.
“And you don’t think everyone feels the way you do sometimes?” she asked.
“Not like this!” I proclaimed.
“Well, honey, you’re wrong,” she said. “If you think you know someone who never feels the way you do right now – who never feels a bit lost and alone, and downright confused and crazy – you just don’t know enough about them. Every one of us contains a measure of ‘crazy’ that moves us in strange, often perplexing ways. This side of us is necessary; it’s part of our human ability to think, adapt and grow. It’s part of being intelligent,” she said. “No great mind has ever existed without a touch of this kind of madness.”
I sat silently for a moment. My eyes gazed from her eyes to the ground and back to her eyes again. “So you’re saying I should want to feel like this?”
“To an extent,” she said. “Let me put it this way: Taking all your feelings seriously all the time, and letting them drive you into misery, is a waste of your incredible spirit. You alone get to choose what matters and what doesn’t. The meaning of everything in your life is the meaning you give it…”
“I guess,” I replied under my breath.
She continued, “And sometimes how you feel simply won’t align with how you want to feel – it’s mostly just your subconscious mind’s way of helping you look at things from a different perspective. These feelings will come and go quickly as long as you let them go… as long as you consciously acknowledge them, and then push through them. At least that’s what I’ve learned to do for myself, out of necessity, on a very regular basis. So you and I are actually struggling through this one together, honey. And I’m also pretty certain we’re not the only ones.”
We shared another moment of silence, then my lips curled up slightly and I cracked a smile, “Thank you, Grandma,” I said.
The bottom line is, despite the real world challenges you face, the biggest and most complex obstacle you will have to personally overcome is your own mind.
YES, YOU CAN THINK BETTER, just like my grandmother pointed out, which means you can tap into your inner spirit and ultimately live better.
