Going through tough times makes you appreciate bright ones even more
This week has been a tough one. We went through our first family cold with a child. And let me tell you it is not fun. When you have a little one crying all the time and non stop - wow does that test your nerves. Take you being sick on top and you have a rough idea what the week looked like. However, as with all uncomfortable situations, we can take some key lessons here.
The first lesson I took is that it is very good to train your resilience in life and really build up a healthy amount of it over time. Resilience is a gift and can really help to stay calm and not get too anxious too fast. Resilience is a skill and can be trained by constantly putting ourselves into uncomfortable situations. Now of course that is against our instincts but it will help us if life just throws the next thing our way. Training resilience in times of calm is a very smart thing to do.
Secondly, going through hard times makes you appreciate the good ones returning even more. When you deal with a very sick child, you really appreciate a moving and active toddler when he is all healthy. Appreciate the good times and be grateful for them. Experiencing tough times really makes you remember that.
Lastly, get as much support as possible - a network of helpers is worth gold. And most importantly, be honest about the fact that you struggle currently and things are hard. Don’t pretend to have everything under control. Showing weaknesses makes you authentic in other peoples eyes and makes you seem more human.
We all go through bad times. It makes us appreciate the good times even more because that is the beauty of life good and bad comes in waves. Let’s enjoy the wave up and not be afraid of when things go a bit downhill as well.