How to Cope with Tragedy

Hello my friends. I'm Brendon Burchard, host of the Brendon show and founder of growthday.com and I'm honored to be your high performance coach today. I believe that every day we can be inspired. We can live with intention and purpose. We can bring the joy and honor the struggles of each day to push ourselves to grow, to serve, to be a role model, to lead extraordinary lives. I believe that every day is a great day to grow. That's why I started my company, growthday.com it's an online personal growth platform where you can get me and the world's best personal development teachers live coaching you every week, sharing our wisdom, keeping you motivated and accountable, encouraging you to find the aliveness and the connection and meaning of life that we're all after. If you're not a member yet, please go sign up@growthday.com and join our huge worldwide community of achievers. For less than a dollar a day you get the world's best teachers live every week. And look, you've probably known for a long time that you needed some expert guidance, an inspired community and life changing tools. So please, your breakthrough awaits you@growthday.com now let's get to today's episode. My friends, please listen closely. Maybe you take some notes so you remember these insights of personal growth and share this episode with three of your friends because we all have to share more positive messages in the world today. So share this with three friends just like you who are committed to their personal growth. And also be sure to tag me or DM me on Instagram. Rendon Burchard Join our million plus community there on Instagram so I can say hi. Thanks again for listening. Now let's begin.

How do you cope with tragedy? How do you recover from difficult things when just life knocks you down or some tragic event sort of interrupts your life? How do we deal with natural disasters down to very human realities? It's difficult and people really struggle with how to carry on in times of hardship. And I don't know if I have advice that could help you today with that or not. Honestly, it's so hard. I've been in so many struggles in my life, from losing my father to losing some great friends to having to deal with natural disasters of hurricanes and tornadoes wiping houses and friends and homes out. So I've seen a lot and been through a lot and helped a lot of people recover with things. And maybe I can share a couple ideas. The first one after a tragedy, the simplest thing that we can do is not go hide or cover up or fall into silence. It's what we often want to do, right? Something bad happens. So we don't want to talk to anybody, and we just want to go in our bedroom and lie down and not talk to anybody. Or we want to become silent when people want to discuss things that are related to the tragedy because we don't want to deal with it. It's already painful enough. Talking about it feels like it's so painful. And we also feel like other people can't understand us, right? Well, they don't understand me because they've never been through this. Well, the reality is people have been through it. Matter of fact, there's probably nothing that you are going through in your life right now that is all that unique. And that really hurts when people hear me say that. And often people, you know, hate on me for saying something like that. But it's true, you know, 7 billion people on the planet right now, hundreds.

Of years of recorded human history through.

Almost every possible turmoil, every possible tragedy. I mean, people have gone through it before. If you're in a place right now, you're like, well, no one can understand me because I've got cancer. You're not anywhere near the close to being the first person to have cancer, nor your type of cancer. And I know that sounds really awful for a guy maybe you may or may not know to tell you that, but isn't it true? We don't go through things alone in humanity anymore. And we have to realize the science proves over and over and over again one of the greatest ways to cope, to feel better, and certainly to recover from and move on in healthy ways, is to get social support, to ask friends and family for support, to talk through other people who are recovering from something. I mean, what they do in natural disasters, you know, maybe a lot of people don't know about this, but when there's a major natural disaster, after it's all said and gone, what usually happens is teams of people come in, often volunteering psychiatrists, doctors who come in. And one of the easiest things they can do to get people reconnected as a community, but also to heal is. Is to put them in circles and talk about what they experienced, talk about how they're going to overcome, talk about what they felt, what they see, what they saw, to gain greater perspective and just to know that they're not alone. The most important thing to realize when you're coping with tragedy is know you're not alone, Even if it feels like it, even if it feels like nobody in the world can understand, somebody can. And you're never going to find that person who can understand until you start talking about your experience. So friends can say, what? Oh, my gosh, I got my friend over here who also dealt with cancer. You guys want to talk so you can learn something from them, so you can be helped? Or you discover somebody online who also went through that experience who's willing to share? Or, my gosh, go to your library and read about people who've gone through what you're going through. You are not alone. And believing you are alone is the only thing that will prolong the pain and the suffering for sure. Don't believe that you are alone. There are people out there. It's critical. I think the second thing we can do is to define our meaning of what happened, right? When a tragedy happens or something negative like, define the meaning for yourself. Don't let the media say what it is. Don't let your friends or your spouses say, because they all got their own unique perspectives. But we have to go inside and say, what does this mean to me? And apply some type of optimistic meaning to it, even if it's horrible. And I know that sounds way hard to say, depending on what you're dealing with. When I lost my father in 2009 to acute myeloid leukemia, if someone said, well, Brendan, you have to define some kind of positive meaning from this, I would have given them the middle finger, right? I know in times of hardship, it is difficult to believe that anything good could come from it. But what we do understand is that what good will come from it is you will get stronger. If you decide that the meaning of this event is there to teach you something, to give you a new hurdle, to give you a challenge or an opportunity to love or care for somebody, that there's something in this tragedy, maybe you can do something for somebody. Maybe from this strategy you'll learn to be nicer, kinder, more patient. And that's a positive thing. If all that happens from it is you become more kind and caring and compassionate to other people, that's a positive thing. Hold on to that. Accept it as a meaningful event. Don't sugarcoat it. Say, look, this happened. It was negative, but I'll turn it into a positive someday as soon as I can realize that you have that power of choice, that power of decision to react to this situation as a fearful, negative, upset, bitter, hurt person, or even if you experience those things, you also have that choice to start transforming that energy, those emotions into a new positive reality, a new positive emotional state for yourself eventually. I can't say it's always going to be easy and it's going to be immediate. I'm not a Pollyannish that way. But I do believe that we can transform any low level of energy in our lives into a higher level of energy that the power plant doesn't just suddenly have energy. It has to transform and generate into energy that's useful. You have to do the same thing with your emotions. And you do that by defining a meaning to that event in some way to find your positivity there and to connect with it and to focus on it.

Hey, it's Brandon jumping back in here again. Are you looking to go to the next level in your life right now? The next level of joy, abundance, success? Then you already know that you need to journal about your lessons learned in your life. You got to track your moods and your habits. You have to learn from the best personal development coaches and teachers in the world. And you got to stay inspired and accountable so that you can be more focused, disciplined, joyous, and keep growing. That's what the Growth Day app is going to help you to do, my friend. It's the world's first all in one personal development app. It has all of the tools you need, all the coaching and the community that you need to level up to progress every week, to track your breakthroughs and to keep growing in every area of your life consistently over the long term. So go start your transformation right now@growthday.com or just download the Growth Day app on your phone right now. Every day. You can keep improving every day. We are here for you. And every day is truly a great day to grow together. So let's make self improvement a way of life. Let's make, make that self improvement stick. Go to growthday.com right now.

The third thing I think we can do is to keep our perspective. You know, there's a reason that generation after generation after generation and biblical accounts and spirituality sort of teachings always remind us that this too shall pass. This too shall pass is a reminder of perspective. That's all it's to say, hey, look, I know it's intense. I know it's brutal. I know it's difficult right now, but things will change over a period of time. It will hurt less, it will change, it will improve in some way or another over a period of time. The universe's sort of, I guess, growth curve is, is towards growth. I mean, things get better. They do. Even if it sucks, right? Now you have to believe that things can get better. Maybe not. You can't solve the one specific problem you're having. Right. There's no question. Many of you know I'm blessed to work with some of the world's highest performers. And I'm also blessed to work with some of the people who struggle the most. I've worked with people who've been paralyzed by a situation. Now they're not based on their diagnosis. They may know they're never going to be free from paralysis. But that doesn't mean they have to be caged in their mind. It doesn't mean that they have to take away vision for a good quality of life for themselves. It doesn't mean that they can't have dreams and hopes, does it? They still can. And they can still improve their life if they can't change the diagnosis. Never forget that just because you can't change the specific diagnosis doesn't mean that you can't steadily improve your mind, your heart, your spirit. Yes. And even bring your relationships closer to together, too. Keep perspective. It shall pass. It shall improve. And don't forget that in those times of tragedy where you feel so small, weak, or minimized, don't forget to keep perspective of yourself, too. In your life before you've demonstrated strength, you struggled through and you made it. Hey, you're here now. Accept that you're okay now as you are right now. You're enough. You're strong enough. You're ready for that next chapter. If you're willing to will yourself forward in a positive and productive way, that right now you're okay. You made it. Give yourself some credit for that. If anything, your life's been crazy. Give yourself some credit, man. You deserve to give yourself some credit. Keep perspective that you're a good person. You'll make it through. I think the last thing we have to always keep in our mind as we're going through tragedy is to keep a vision of the future that draws enthusiasm from us, that draws excitement, that draws engagement. And as we have some kind of vision of the future, even if it's so hard to force ourselves to see something we can move towards, and every single day, no matter what, move towards it. I tell a lot of people who I deal with who've been through traumatic situations in their life and they're just trying to get going again, maybe they're coming out of a depression or something. I say, you know what? Just set three small goals every day and work to knock them off. Make them happen, achieve them. Just three things a day. Even if you're so struggling right now and things are so bad. If just one of those goals is to take a shower, take a shower. Please take a shower. It's like, come on, set three small goals each day and move towards them. Doesn't matter if that means go get the groceries for the day. Mop up the floor today. Make the bed today. Call someone you love today. Make a move towards your dream today. Read a book today. Do something that moves you forward in these moments of hardship and it will help you keep your perspective. It will help you keep progress and momentum in your life. It will keep your mind alert and engaged. It will keep your soul marching forward and you will start to feel that sense, that pull, that, that energy that is still there.

Okay, my friend, I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Brendon Show. Tell some people about this episode. It's on each of us to spread positivity and empowerment during these times of chaos and negativity.

Right?

So I'm asking you to be the dealer of hope and personal growth and education in your tribe. So take a screenshot right now and share the screenshot and this link to this episode with three of your friends today. Post it on social media. Use the hashtag growthday. That's growthday, because that's the name of my company and we're always giving away prizes to our community. If you'd like to help me personally, then please rate and review the podcast on Apple Podcasts. Give us some stars, cheer us on, leave a review. Because believe it or not, that stuff actually really does help. And I read all of them. So my last thought for today, please remember, you are stronger than you think and the future holds good things for you. Tomorrow can be an inspired day. Every new morning is a second chance. Every day is a great day to grow. We're thankful to have you here in the Growth Day community. So be sure to go deeper with us@growthday.com.

Sam.