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Bouncing Back From Failure

You're reading this because you've experienced some kind of failure in your life - whether it's failure of a business, or a relationship... Maybe you lost your job or a competition of some sort. You're feeling like crap! You may not even be able to face yourself in the mirror. You're kicking yourself; thinking if you'd only done something differently--- then you wouldn't be in the spot you're in right now.

Well, having been exactly where you are right now, it's gonna take some time and self reflection for you to begin the healing process. So you will not only feel better but learn to look at your situation from a different perspective than you have right now.

I speak from experience. At one time in my life I had a beautiful home; owned a business that was doing pretty well for many years; my family and I were taking some nice trips and had nice things; we were having a great time!

Then the economy tanked and took us right along with it. As things started to crash I did everything I knew how to do to try and save the business which was the sole source of income in our household for both my husband and I because we worked it together. And to make matters worse, my parents worked in the business with us and their income source was in jeopardy too! I grasped for every "life raft" I could see, to no avail. We had to close the business, file bankruptcy and give up the house we loved so very much. We had no income prospects and my parents were forced into a retirement they were not ready for. My spirit was just about as low as it could get. I was physically sick! I gain a lot of weight trying to eat my guilty feelings away. When I did have the courage to look at myself in the mirror, I swear I looked 10 years older.

The guilt I felt from this massive failure consumed me. I was embarrassed-I withdrew from the world.

The good thing was that my husband and parents never blamed me for our crash, but I had enough guilt for all of us and then some. So I ate until I couldn't stand myself anymore.

Then I started to cry; mourning the loss of my parent's livelihood, ours and our house. I had put so much love and work into that house. I thought we'd grow old together there; create so many memories there together. Our neighbors were amazing and it seemed like a nearly perfect situation for us.

It would now be gone, coupled with the embarrassment of having to file bankruptcy. For as long as I can remember, I'd always been taught and had practiced "You make a bill, you pay a bill!" Filing bankruptcy was what other people did-not us. Well, that pride soon fell away to the reality of having no other choice. So I had to climb out of the funk I was in so I could gather all the paperwork the bankruptcy attorneys needed. While I was doing that, I started scouring the internet, looking for meditations and prayers that could help me stop this pain I was in. I found paper books, audio books; YouTube videos - made great use of our community library and found a lot of things to help me. I hated the way I felt! I kept thinking to myself, "I am a soldier!" "I was raised with Infantrymen" "Weakness was no longer an option!" This is what I learned from my time in the Army. I had to figure out how to change the way I was looking at things. So I started looking at the things I still had, instead of the things I'd lost.

I was healthy, had a great husband who loved me we faced things side by side. My parents did everything they could to help, including encouraging me to pick myself up and dust myself off! They said they'd be OK. The rest of my family was sooooooo supportive too. They shared whatever resources they had with us.

I also realized that this was not the worst thing that had ever happened to me. I'd already survived the WORST thing that had ever happened to me; which was losing a wonderful husband in a car accident and sustaining life threatening injuries that almost took away my independence. I got through THAT, so I could get through this!

I continued to devour inspirational books, etc. I streamlined everything! What was not essential was sold. The stuff I couldn't sell, I donated to someone that could get some use out of it.

And as I continued to do this, I had a wonderful revelation that the world kept turning and life did go on-however different. We still owed the IRS money after everything went down and I made sure to contact them and make payment arrangements, so they wouldn't try to put me in jail! LOL!

They kept threatening to take our assets, but there weren't any! I suddenly realized how liberating it was to have nothing to lose anymore!

Then I started keeping a gratitude journal again--- giving thanks for the smallest things-things like having money to buy food or a nearby parking space at the store. A play date with my brand new niece (those days were especially helpful!) I had finally begun to dig myself out of the bottomless pit I had fallen into. It did indeed have a bottom and I was on my way up!

We got work and started rebuilding our credit and so on.

I learned to look at the experience for what it taught me about how things change and how all things can be changed through perspective - looking at the positive aspects instead of the negatives; How to bounce back from the pit of despair and keep doing it, when not if, you sink back into a funk.

Wake up every day CHOOSING to be happy, not waiting for it to show up; Know that the gift of life every day is well worth being thankful for. Be thankful for that one thing, if there's nothing else you can think of on a given day to be thankful for. Gratitude for that one thing can spark a windfall of things in your heart for which to give thanks.

The beauty of life if being able to learn from every experience and live a life without fear; that circumstances in life will always be there to try and crush your spirit, but you have the power to choose. You can let them defeat you or you can become better because of them. Failure is a part of life, but like it said in a book I read by John C. Maxwell called "Failing Forward" is a choice each one of us has to make.


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