How To Cope With Difficulty or Tragedy

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? You know, 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, you know, 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 hate on me for saying something like that. But it's true. Seven 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. Psychologists, 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 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 get 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 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, 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. 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. 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 tragedy 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 onto that. Accept it as a meaning, you know, as a meaningful event. Don't sugarcoat it. Say, look, this happened, it was negative, but I'll turn it into a positive think 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. 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 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. 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 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. 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 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, it's 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 energy that is still there, that truth that life is still in you. If you are watching this, if you are still here, it is still there. It is. It's your time to once more charge forward. It's your time to charge your own life. Hey guys, it's Brendan. Did you like this episode? If you did, you can do three things right now to continue your journey. First, you can subscribe right here to my channel, which I hope you will, so I can keep sending you videos on a weekly basis to change your life. Second, you can get my brand new book for free by clicking the link right here. And third, you can also go to my website, sign up for my newsletter so that I can send you free offers, free products, free programs, updates on my events, new podcasts, and everything else that we don't do on this channel here. If you like to do that, just go ahead and click any of these buttons you see right here. Look forward to seeing you on the next video. Until then, go out there every single day of your life. Live fully, love openly and make your difference today.