Lost terribly at the family game of cards? Tear up that score card and put it out of your mind. A silly little board game is not worth thinking about and ruining your day. But you know that. Or you should.
Your fiancé lets you know that after thinking about your relationship, you just aren’t the perfect one? Go ahead and sob brokenheartedly for a while, mope around the house in your pjs, eat a gallon of chocolate ice cream, get angry and tear up the picture of you two enjoying a day at the beach together… and then determinedly move on.
Grief over the death of a loved one? You definitely do need to grieve. Feel the depression that comes, experience the total loss that weighs you down and makes even simple walking feel impossible. That is normal. Painful, but normal. But, after falling headfirst into that mud puddle of despair, do not let yourself lay there endlessly. There has to come a time when you sit up, look around you, wipe off your face, then sigh and begin your life again.
I could cite an endless list of things that can ruin your days…or even your life for years. But I’m telling you as emphatically as I possibly can – WHAT EVER IT IS, DO NOT LET IT CONTROL YOU ENOUGH TO DESTROY YOU. Nothing, absolutely nothing, is worth that.
There is a real fact in life, and that is this; a traumatic day, or week, or even years, all fall into the category of ‘the past.” And when that day comes when you get hit below the belt by life vand you will - you will have to choose to move on past that painful yesterday. After all, you can’t change what has happened, and dwelling endlessly on it is depressing and paralyzing, so don’t make that mistake. Give your pain all the attention that it is due, and then pull yourself up by your bootstraps, as your grandfather would say, and determinedly choose to start over.
I say this because the day after that traumatic day happens, your tomorrows will rapidly begin arriving, one after another, and you will have no choice but to make a choice. Between starting over, or laying in that mud puddle of pain. One is guaranteed to keep you hurting and depressed. The other gives you a fighting chance to create a life you can enjoy.
Choose wisely. Because you are the only fighter in this war. Sure, others will want to help you, and will offer endless advice, support, and loving wisdom. But ultimately, you and you alone, will decide if that painful ‘yesterday’ wins the battle and has the power to cause you to live the rest of your life on earth, wishing you weren’t here.