(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) With everything that's happened to you, you can feel sorry for yourself or treat what has happened as a gift. Everything is either an opportunity to grow or an obstacle to keep you from growing. You get to choose. That's a quote from Wayne Dyer. You may have heard this idea before, that our problems are really blessings that are here to teach us something new and help us to grow.
It's a lovely idea, yes, but pretty difficult to put into practice. Can you imagine how nice it would be, though, if every challenge or problem that we experienced, we were able to embrace it instead of fearing it because we trusted that it was here for a reason? It was here to teach us something and to help us to grow and expand? Think back to a time in your life when you were going through something really difficult. What was the situation? How did you feel?
So actually take a moment, you can pause this podcast and think of a situation that you found really, really challenging and think about how you were feeling at the time. Okay, are you back? Okay, good. So first of all, did you survive that situation? Obviously you did because you're here. And how did you survive? How did you get through it? I'll give you an example from my life. When I first went to college, I went to UC Davis. It was my first time living in California.
Before that, I had grown up on a naval base in Japan. And so coming to California, I didn't know anybody. I didn't know anyone at my school. I had never visited the campus. Within a few weeks of being there, my boyfriend broke up with me and I didn't have any friends.
And I was just really overwhelmed by all the change, by the breakup and just this transition from being in the same place for years and years and having the same group of friends and being with my family to being somewhere completely new and to experiencing all these new challenges. It was the first time in my life that I'd ever felt depressed. And it lasted for several months. And it was really, really scary. At the time, I was so deep in sadness that I couldn't see a way out.
I didn't know what was going to happen. It was really hard for me to see a different or brighter future. But here I am years later. I survived that experience. And looking back, I can see how even though it wasn't something I wanted to happen, I can see how much I learned and how much I grew. For example, I guess one of the biggest things that I learned was what depression felt like.
And I'd never woken up before feeling a complete lack of joy, feeling like nothing in the world, even things that I used to love doing, would make me happy or change how I felt. There was nothing that I looked forward to. There was nothing that could cheer me up. There was just a sense of feeling really numb. And that was really scary for me. I am glad, however, that I went through that because I've known people who were depressed.
And I actually had a relative who experienced a lot of depression throughout her life. And going through that experience, I feel, made me a lot more understanding and empathetic to other people who are depressed and who are depressed for much longer periods of time. And I just feel like I have a lot more understanding and compassion for people who are going through something like that. I also learned the importance of having a social network. And making friends.
And I also learned that even though it felt terrible in the moment, that not everything lasts forever. That the way I felt when my boyfriend at the time broke up with me, it wasn't going to last forever. That time does heal. And that things change. And so, that problem was really hard to go through. But looking back, I'm glad that I went through it. I feel like it made me a different and stronger person. And a more wise person. And a more compassionate person.
And that is, I feel like, what a lot of our lives are about. We're not here to just stay the same. We're here to experience life. All the ups and downs. To learn and to grow. And to become more interesting, wise, and strong human beings. So looking back at whatever problem that you chose to think about, what did you learn from that? How did it change you as a human being? Are you going through a problem right now?
Because if you are, let's talk about some ways that we can start to implement this idea into our lives. This idea that our problems are not here to defeat us, they're here for us to learn from and to grow. And if we can embrace our opportunities, then we won't walk around being afraid of life or uncertainty or quote-unquote problems, because we'll know that we can handle them.
And if we have some tools in our tool belt, then we can pull out those tools anytime we come across a challenge, and we can use those tools to help us get through it. So are you going through any problems right now that you want to practice these tools with? If so, think about that problem. You can pause for a moment and think about the problem and think about how it's making you feel. So first of all, let's put things into perspective.
So whatever you're going through, remind yourself that things will be different in time, that things will change, and it's going to feel really different in just a few days, a month, a year from now. Everything changes. Not everything lasts forever. Nothing lasts forever. Change is a constant of our lives. And so just put things in perspective and know that this problem will be different in time.
So number two, trust that even though you may not know exactly how, that everything is going to work out and that you are never given anything that you cannot handle. Okay, number three, having gratitude for your problem. So say to yourself, I am willing to see this experience as an opportunity to learn. I am grateful for the opportunity to grow as an ever-changing, ever-expanding human being. Remember that we're all here to learn and grow. It's human nature.
And finally, ask yourself these questions. What can I learn from this experience? How am I being asked to level up? How is this experience actually helping me? So I know that was kind of a lot.
You can go back through these tools and through these questions and just pause after each one and really kind of work out and answer these questions in your head and see if that helps you to shift the energy of just being stuck in a problem and see if it helps you to reframe it as an opportunity and start looking for solutions and ways that you can move through it and reframing the problem as an opportunity. So I hope that was helpful for you.
I know this was kind of a quick episode and it was a lot in a short period of time. So go back, go through it, listen again and just pause after each tool, after each question and take some time to reflect. Okay, so have a beautiful day. Put these into practice. It's not something that we do really easily and quickly. It's something that we have to kind of continuously remember to practice. So use these tools and see how they work for you. Thanks for tuning in, everyone.
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