Isn’t it interesting that a word or phrase just speaks to you, out of nowhere? When you least expect it, you get this overwhelming sense of awe, wonderment, and questions that you now maybe see a different answer too?

I recently watched, The Martian; which by the way if you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it. 

One of the parts that stuck with me was when Mark Watney says, “…space does not cooperate…”.  Of course he was referencing the challenges of surviving on Mars. I won’t spoil it for you. This also hit me in a bit of a different way as a survivor.

When we are trying to heal and overcome our past, to no longer let it dominate our daily existence, not everything is going to go as planned. Life is not going to cooperate the way we want or think we need it too. The world has a mind of its own, and life has a mind of its own. As much as we want our path to be laid out in front of us to just follow, it just doesn’t work like that.

Just when you think you have one challenge figured out, another one comes along and completely jacks up our well thought out plan. It causes us to pause, re-assess, and adjust so we can still reach our goal of empowerment.

If healing were linear it would be so much easier; do this, that, and follow this road map and you will be healed!  Yeah…not so much!

So what do we do when life throws something else at us? How are we going to handle the unexpected?  You can’t prepare for every possible scenario no matter how much you try.  To that point though I will say, the longer we continue our recovery, we learn more about ourselves and we become better equipped to handle the unexpected.

While we do have that assurance and hope that our hard work to heal will help us; inevitably a scenario will unfold that we have to overcome. Oh how I wish it were only a one-time thing, but we know that’s not the case either.

We have to be strong and know that giving up is not an option. If we give up, throw in the towel, and just say “this is too difficult”, then what is the result? We end up stuck, miserable, sad, lonely, and never giving ourselves the chance to experience life the way we deserve it. Essentially we end up feeling as helpless and victimized as we were when our abuse happened.

That is no way to live! Not when we have the power to change it, and as adults we do have that power. We may not think that we do, and for damn sure it’s not going to be easy, but we do.

It’s up to us to use whatever means necessary to find a way to keep plowing forward.  To give you another movie clip, “the world meets nobody half way”. 

Nobody is going to heal for us because nobody can heal for us. It’s up to us as survivors to make our own destiny!

There’s nothing wrong with reaching out for help and support, in fact we need to do that.  Sticking together and utilizing the resources out there is what can help give us hope even when all hope seems lost.

Some things we can do to help ourselves when we feel stuck; like our current plan maybe has us feeling like we’re stalled out.  Consider, perhaps, going in a different direction with a therapist or life coach (that’s no easy decision and should be contemplated extremely carefully). Maybe we read a self-book by a different author or topic than we are used too. Maybe we go out of our comfort zone and interact more in social media. There are countless others who are going through what we are experiencing. What about starting a blog, taking up an art class, learning to play an instrument, to help us deal with anxiety and stress better.

What happens when a family member or friend betrays our trust? Talk about throwing a wrench in our plans!  Do we just give up and say, well I’m screwed now?!  This or that person has invalidated and told people they no business telling. “I might as well just quit”. This one really hits home for me.

No, we cannot let that be an option either!

In that case, we establish healthy boundaries with that person(s) and realize it’s a lesson learned. Even if someone breaks our trust unintentionally, the damage can be severe. It will take time to recover, and that’s OK. We will be better equipped to handle this situation again when it comes up; and it will come up again.

What I’m getting at here quite simply is, Just Don’t Give Up! We’ve come too far to stop now.

The fact that you are still here, living and surviving is a huge victory in itself. You know you are worth fighting for.

So when life doesn’t cooperate with us, we need to stay focused on the goal. What that goal looks like is different for each person, but the feelings we desire are the same.

-Matt