Ever since college, I knew I always wanted a business. However, I didn’t just want any kind of business. I didn’t want to sell something just for the sake of selling. I wanted to sell something that could help people in a big way. I wanted to provide something that stood out from the crowd and helped to transform lives.
At the time, I wanted it to be personal training. I just knew I would have a personal training business that help people and inspired them to a lifelong fitness craze lol…
But a few months before I turned 30, I began to get this itch that I wanted to do something more than prescribing fitness programs. Not that it’s anything wrong with that, but I value teaching. And as a personal trainer, you do more telling than teaching which leads to disempowerment, and that bothered me.
I knew I wanted to do something big, something that left true impact. Something that empower and inspire. Something that can only come from me. I just didn’t know what that was.
Then illness came knocking. My health scare awakened so much inside me. It was a message my body sent to me telling me that I needed to heal spiritually and emotionally. I was literally killing myself and didn’t even know it.
Turning Point
Little did I know, my recovery from my illness gave me the foundation for the type of business I was desiring. I learned so many lessons about who I am and what I need in order to thrive and succeed.
I realized that I had been harboring so much pain that it was literally breaking my body down and slowly killing me. I had to re-evaluate my life and see what I was so unhappy about so I could change it.
I learned how powerful I really was, and how my thoughts, beliefs, and emotions had shaped my current situation. And at that moment, I realized that I could create a new reality. Also, I realized that there was some lessons I needed to learn if I wanted to thrive and get healthy again.
I wanted to thrive so that I could help someone else heal and thrive, and I wanted to share it with as many people as possible.
10 Tips to Transform Your Pain Into Your Power
These are personal insights that I gained from recovering from illness. I had so much repressed anger and unforgiveness towards myself and others that I began to self-destruct. Here’s how I began to break the cycle that was breaking me.
- Take care of yourself. When chronically stressed, you tend to lose the energy and motivation to exercise, eat healthy, or enjoy yourself. So, I encourage you to take part in activities such as massage or reflexology; find ways to laugh often; and schedule time to get outdoors and enjoy the beauty of the universe. Engage in happy exercise (exercise that you enjoy and is relaxing) and love yourself enough to give your body life-sustaining food.
- Ask yourself, “What am I supposed to learn from this” versus “Why did this happen”? Better yet, as God (or your Creator) for answers. They will come.
- Pray and meditate. It’s so important to have a spiritual foundation for challenging times. Our source and security is our Creator. When you don’t have a spiritual foundation, you are easily knocked down. However, when you begin to build one after the storm, you learn wisdom, get courage, and discover the stability you need to move forward.
- Don’t take it personally. If you are dealing with toxic people in your life, and they are doing unfair things to you, remember that they are doing it for themselves. They are doing what makes them feel better about themselves without a care in the world how it’s affecting you. It’s not about you.
- Understand people and why they do what they do. Related to #4, it helped me tremendously to study why people do what they do. We are all trying to fulfill a driving need, whether those methods to fulfill them are honorable or not. So don’t take people’s crap personally.
- Anger is a superficial emotion. Anger is a “cover up” emotion for other thoughts and feelings you have about yourself. Anger covers up feelings of “not good enough, not pretty enough, not talented enough, not special, insignificance, and feelings of not being lovable”. Release anger by releasing the things that are hiding underneath it.
- Validate your emotions and feelings. Don’t suppress them. What you resist persists. If you feel unlovable, then acknowledge why you feel unlovable. This is compassion. Then find healthy, empowering ways to feel lovable.
- Take 100% Responsibility for Your Life. You are the co-creator of your life. You never make yourself a liar. Your life is a reflection of the thoughts, beliefs, and emotions that you have about yourself and others. Until you take responsibility, you can’t change anything.
- Give voice and empathy to your shame and resentment. Related to #8, show compassion to your pain and challenges. When you show compassion, you allow yourself to heal. You learn lessons, and you are able to turn around and help others heal and thrive.
- How can you use your story to help yourself and others heal? Here is where you can create a message, a purpose, to share with others on a local, regional, or global scale. How can you share your lessons to help others prosper? Start a youtube channel? Write a book? Blog?
- Bonus!!!! Express your emotions. All illness (and other life experiences) begin on an emotional level. Angry about things? Scream, stomp your feet, take up kickboxing. Sad? Cry. Whatever you do, don’t hold them in. Your body seeks to express emotion by any means necessary.
Summary
Whatever challenge you are facing, you can persevere and be victorious in the face of adversity. Use these 10 tips to apply to your situation. Create an empowering story of healing versus one of victimhood. Do you have an empowering story of healing? Share it below!
*Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
