When The Student Is Ready

When was the last time you bounced back from something that could have (and maybe should have) brought you down? Last year? Last week? Are you attempting to do it today?Raise your hand if you feel like recovering from a tough time is not just hard, it's excruciating. Exhausting.

Keep your hand if while you're in the middle of it, you think, "Is this even worth the effort anymore?"

It's so hard to stick with the work of getting better, feeling better, living better. Often, it feels unattainable, doesn't it? The mere prospect of working through all the junk that keeps piling on is overwhelming and sometimes feels a lot like suffocating.

If you're at this juncture, I want you to think about other people in your life that have been through a tough time, possibly even to hell and back and yet they're... ok. They're happy. Maybe they're even THRIVING. How do they do it?

What secret do they know that you don't?

Why are they one of the lucky ones and you're still sitting here, struggling, frustrated, and lost?

What gives universe???

Was it luck? Was it skill? Was it perseverance? Is it even genuine? Or are they just smiling to save face?

To be honest, it depends. It depends on the person, their situation, their background, their goals... all that jazz.

But here's the thing... you can get there. You can get to a point where your current situation, whatever it is, doesn't have to determine your life's path and hold you down. You can overcome it.

Seriously. No matter what you're going through, you can overcome it.

Cancer.

Death.

Divorce.

Bankruptcy.

Addiction.

Disordered eating.

Scandal.

Depression.

Loss.

Pain.

Heartbreak.

"But Angela, you don't understand." Actually I do. I understand better than you might think. I've had bad moments. Bad days. Bad years.

But I'm still here.

That seems to be my battle cry, but I'm sticking with it.

I'm still here.

And so are you.

Resiliency is a skill. And the thing about skills is that they can be learned. That's right. You can learn how to bounce back. You can learn how to design your own comeback. You can learn how to develop your own rebuilding program. You can learn how to be healthy, whole and happy. Even if you've never been there before, you can do it.

It won't happen overnight. And it won't be easy. Let's face it: if either of those options were true, wouldn't the transformation have happened to you by now?

You may have figured out at this point that if you can learn resiliency, then you need to be taught. Which means you need a teacher. There is a saying that when the student is ready, the teacher will appear.

The opportunity is there. It's ready. Are you?