“Even the darkest hour has only 60 minutes.” By Morris Mandel
Living with PTSD from workplace bullying and conflicts, I recognize that I may never be the ‘old me’. That filled me with resentment and fear. And yet over time I have come find happiness and fulfillment and friends with that fear.
Think about it… our darkest hour. What was your darkest time? When?
What happened? How did you respond? Was it a helpless feeling? Did you recover? Could you move forward? If not …. why? Were you trapped in your pain? Stuck in the dark?
Each hour only has 60 minutes and I, like you, have had a few ‘of those darkest hours’.
Some in our childhood, some in the teenage years and some in our adult life.
How you think about each second depends on our belief system,
our mindset, our attitude and ability to truly believe we can handle life and those darkest hours, life and all its challenges.
We’ve all been there or we will be there at some point in our lives, we cannot escape it. Everyone will experience, at some point in life, their darkest hour. You cannot hide from the darkness of life. And life can certainly toss us a curve ball grenade of misery.
Everyone looks at life differently, our experiences will be similar but our reactions are unique. A tragedy to one may not have the same impact to another. Car accidents, a doctor’s diagnosis, relationships breakups, conflicts with family and friends and workplace war zones. The news, just watch the news. More darkest hours for somebody. Life can be scary and fear can keep us stuck in those dark moments, fear keeps us paralyzed. Fear is a happiness vacuum…sucks out our hope and happiness!
If we are honest with ourselves… admit that we try to avoid unpleasant experiences. I Know in the past I did. Events on the TV we simply change the channel, magazines we turn the page. . We might say…. ‘Oh my gosh that’s terrible!’
But do we ever really imagined or prepare ourselves for those 3600 seconds?????
Not really. How do we do that?
How many times have you heard someone say, ‘oh I don’t know what I do if that happened to me?’ ‘I could never survive this or that!’ ‘My life would be over. My Life would be ruined!’
WOW. My life would be over. So does that mean if you suffered a tragedy, your darkest hour, at 18 years of age, your life would be over until you died at 90? 72 years of misery. WOW that is a long time to be in the darkest hour.
Remember the last time you heard someone say that or you may have thought the same thing. I can remember thinking those same words watching the news …about a sexual assault. It happens a lot when we are afraid, when we think we can’t handle life, it is filled with fear. Real or imagined, fear is fear. Guess what ???? You can learn to become friends with your fear. How do we do that.? How do we become friends with our fear?
We learned to trust ourselves, to believe in our voice, to recognize our fear, to be willing to grow through our fear.
To value who we are. To be aware, And to know that whatever happens in life WE CAN HANDLE IT. Dr. Susan Jeffers in her book “Feel the Fear and do it anyway” explains how fear can also be a motivator, of helping us get out of our comfort zone, to be our best.
Yes you can learn to become friends with your fears. By trusting in you.
For me I had to TRUST. Five letters.. T. R. U. S. T
Truth – know your truth
Resilience – yes you can
Unwavering – in your courage
Support – seek out the positive
Time – sometimes we need time
Learn to TRUST yourself
that no matter what happens in life, your life, you can handle it! . You see our imagination and reality are two different things. Often we create our fear from our fears. For example: In our relationships ( what would I do if he/she left?) and you miss the signs of abuse (what would I do if he /she cheated?). and you remain insecure (what would I do if he/she died)? You never miss out on allowing ourselves to really love.
Being afraid and we miss out of life.
How we think has so much to do with our fears, living in that darkest hour or fearing that darkest hour. What will happen?
Being aware of what we are afraid of, can help you become friends with your fear.
Often our imagination feeds that fear.
Will there be suffering and sadness in that darkest hour? Absolutely!! but knowing you can handle it …takes away some of the feelings of feeling helpless.
Today, think about how you handle your life, how you choose to live the good times and how you choose to live in that darkest hour. Remembering that our reactions will different everyone.
In our darkest hour you have a choice on how you think, how you respond to each second
And yes you can make that choice to TRUST that no matter what happens in life
you can handle it, life can be scary.