Only you can lift yourself out of grief, loneliness, depression from loss, and all manners of suffering that you will experience throughout your life be it great or be it small. This is your human condition, and what it means to be a human being. Life is what you make of it and not always what you think you deserve.
Our human existence is sometimes easy and sometimes hard.
Your daily challenge is not to lie down and give up, but to lift yourself out of and up no matter what is going on in your life. When I was a little child of seven, my mother’s new husband didn’t want me and my twin sister to live with them. We were put in an orphanage with children who had mental problems and with orphan children abandoned by their parents. It became our suffering world. Through it all, we were little brave children of seven years old begging our mother to bring us back home. After two long years, she finally did. Once back home, I feared our mommy might take us away again, but it didn’t happen.
We carry emotional wounds from our past into our evolving lives. Sometimes, such wounds are healed, but the scars remain. We are called to move forward and upward, no matter how difficult our life journey becomes. There comes a time when you will appreciate how wonderfully brave you have been by overcoming your life’s challenges. This realization increases your resilience by encouraging you to keep on moving forward no matter what.
“Even earth’s creatures know when and how to give and receive comfort.The great elephants move in closer to each other, rubbing their trunks around their suffering companions. They know how to mourn and go to graveyards caressing the bones of their once-upon friends in slow reflective movements. And one by one they move on.”
Our human existence often involves experiencing physical and emotional pain and grief. Nonetheless, we can have joy and happiness in the best of times and in the worst of times. You never have to suffer alone because some will listen to you with compassion giving you hope and encouragement. Sometimes, when we seek help, we need to swallow our pride to help get well. We are not put on this earth to suffer alone. It doesn’t matter if you are a spiritual person or not. Lifting yourself out of emotional and physical pain takes humility and courage, which we truly possess. If you remain emotionally down for too long without help, you won’t be able to get up, let alone move forward.
I heard about a man who was preparing to take his own life, he heard someone knocking on his door and opened it, surprised to see a young woman weeping. “Sorry,” she said, “I’m at the wrong apartment. You are crying so hard. What is going on?” She told him her mother had recently died and that her father had been killed six months previous in the war. He listened from his heart, comforting her as best he could. And then she stopped crying, wiping away the tears. She lifted her head looking at him. “You saved my life,” she said, hugging him, and left. He dumped his pills down the kitchen drain and left his apartment a brand new man.
Find inspiration from the lives of people. Find inspiration from the animals you love.
Find inspiration from the sun that greets you on a new day.
Find inspiration by moving your fingers, walking, and breathing, as the ‘grateful’ list is endless. Refuse to indulge in anger from continual arguing, self-pity, and feeling sorry for yourself.
When this becomes your constant companion, it will destroy your life and stop you from moving forward.
When I was thirteen years old, my mother had a breakdown and destroyed part of our home. My mother, my sister, my grandmother, and I were taken to the police station where they were planning to put us in different facilities. A friend offered to look after all of us, and soon after, our mother recovered. Nonetheless, this experience affected me deeply, with fears of the future, compounded by my experience of being put in a facility as an eight-year-old.
“Through life, we are challenged to surge forward with resilience, strength, and courage.”
Dwelling too long on our past is extremely futile, often resulting in mental, emotional, and physical illness. We are challenged to get help as needed and to move forward with optimism and laughter, a proven recipe for healing. A dangerous point in life takes place when an individual enters such deep suffering they may choose to end their life. We are asked not to judge them but to be merciful and prayerful.
When uplifting yourself, it involves setting realistic goals by avoiding impossible and stressful expectations.
As you move forward in your life, are your goals making you stay up at night and interfering with your sleep?
Do they take away your ability to live in the present?
Do your expectations encourage you to move forward with mental, emotional, and physical stability?
Do you even have life goals, or does it even matter?
You are never a failure when you don’t achieve your goals.
Ask yourself what gives you happiness each day.
What lifts your spirits?
What lives inside your mind from moment to moment?
What gives you peace of mind?
What makes you jump for joy?
Returning to the energy of nowness is your healing medicine. Understanding your past helps, but only to a point.
You need to be in touch with what works in your life and what does not.
This involves examining what you are giving your emotional energy to and the reasons for doing that. So help you God your life is only yours. Your life does not belong to your parents, spouse, children, or employers, nor to society.
Accepting this reality will set you free from excessively rehashing your problems from rubbing your skin with poison ivy, and wondering why you are not moving forward. . .
Elizabeth Upton Award-Winning Author & Writer 
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