IN ALL ASPECTS of life, we experience highs and lows, emotional and physical traumas. You can use anything to grow, to shift perspectives, gain self-reflection, and live with positivity as an alternative to pain.

Suffering is not inevitable or required, but it is optional. You have a choice to break through fear and anger, changing into understanding, compassion, gratitude, and forgiveness.

You have two stories to tell about everything in your life. Both are true, but the difference lies in your purpose and how you tell the truth.

• I was a victim of bullying in school. It ruined my life every single day. I lived in constant fear. My stomach tied up in knots. I despised the people who relentlessly tortured me. I felt I had a right to hate the world and seek revenge. Why me? What did I do to these monsters?

Or there is this possibility.

• I was bullied in school. It was hell every single day, but the fear and hatred I felt taught me never to cause another person pain in any way. I found happiness and relief from bullying in music, acting, and art. That’s where I liked the world most, where I forgot about my pain. Bullies are insecure people looking for power and control. I may never know what is going on in the life of a bully. Perhaps they were bullied at home. Thinking about that, having compassion released my pain and made for forgiveness.

These are two ways of seeing the world – two similar true stories.

It sounds wild to say, but it’s true – I’m grateful I was bullied. It enables me to help other people who live with this horror and threatening memories.

The stories you tell can be life-enhancing, not debilitating. You can refrain and create new interpretations that allow you to clear and vent old wounds that lock you down—moving to a bigger, kinder picture of the world even when resistance wants you to hate, to be tight and small.

We have a choice in how we think and discuss every circumstance. We can discover the why. We can see with gratitude or with resentment. Choose goodwill or act to punish. Be compassionate to others and also ourselves, or live with malice.

Sometimes, to know kindness, we have to experience unkindness.

I don’t excuse the cruelty, but I changed how I thought about it, which changed its effect on me.

Adversity can be an advantage.

Every tough story has a flip side that calls to our humanity, gives us peace of mind and heart, and offers a greater, more liberating truth.

Thanks – Michael (he, him)

Please share this Daily with your tribes.
This also matters – Gremlin Talk.

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