What to do the next time life beats you up

"When Life Throws You In The Mud, Plant Yourself And Grow."

When I wrote those words as I crafted my first book, This is How We Grow, ​I was definitely in the mud. In fact, I'd often say it felt like I was "knee deep, thick in the mud," attempting to walk one painfully slow step at a time.

That was not long after my dear sister, Shannon, had died (Read more about Shannon and my story here) unexpectedly of an overdose of Tylenol and Alcohol, just after her husband Rob had died of skin cancer, just after I'd become a mother to their two children, had a baby and suddenly was he mother of six. It was the muddiest time of my life...until now.

I'm not saying now is worse than then. How do you compare death and loss with your own life-threatening illness? I am saying that I'm back in the mud, once again, and my movement feels even more slow and painstaking than ever before. 

As I write this, it's been exactly three months since I was diagnosed with breast cancer. In that three months, I had a double mastectomy and reconstruction surgery, was diagnosed with the BRCA1 gene mutation, went through 7 weeks of expanders, had a follow up breast reconstruction surgery, a complete hysterectomy, was shoved immediately into menopause, developed a staph infection, spent 6 days in the hospital trying to cure it, had a reaction to the antibiotics I was taking, ended up needing emergency surgery to remove my right breast implant, and was finally deemed "healthy" enough, only 10 days later, to start pretty heavy duty chemotherapy.

It's a lot. It's heavy. It's surreal, and unreal, and many times, too real. 

It's been an incredibly muddy three months...and I've got a lot more mud to go.

Mud is good for growing things, however. Well, maybe not mud exactly, but dirt, soil. In fact, the darker the soil, the richer and more nutrient-dense it is.

When I looked up the word “grow” in the dictionary here’s what I found: to spring up and develop to maturity; to increase in size by assimilation of material into the living organism; to promote the development of (Webster's New World Dictionary). Now we’re obviously not just talking about plants here; no, we are talking about growing ourselves—springing up to maturity, increasing in (figurative) size by assimilating information, and ultimately, about promoting our personal development. Life gives us countless opportunities for growth, but far too often we fail to see them for what they really are. We see the obstacle, the opposition, the obstruction, but we fail to see the opportunity.

That's what I'm experiencing now: an opportunity. It doesn't always feel so, but when I remind myself of what I know to be true it is this: These challenges life throws our way, this "mud" life dumps us in...it's the richest possible soil in which we can grow.

That little word--grow--seems so small and insignificant, but really it's big and important. To me, GROW means: Grasp the Repeating Opportunities for Wisdom. How important is that?
 

​When things don't go your way or when life seems completely flipped upside down, remember to Grasp—reach out your hand and take hold of the lesson. It's not always easy to do, but if you're willing to try, I guarantee the lesson learned will be worth it.

In fact, life's lessons keep Repeating until they are learned. So if you miss it on the first go around, don't worry--it will come back again. Trust me, having been through so much death and loss and illness has too often had me questioning, "Haven't I already learned this lesson?" Sometimes, I realized I really haven't learned it yet. Other times, I recognize the need for the next level of learning a particular lesson, but they definitely repeat as often as we need to "get" what needs getting and make positive change in our lives as a result.

It's hard, but growing is not about ease anyway; it is an Opportunity, an opportunity to gain Wisdom​, and gaining wisdom is no cakewalk. ​​ It is stretching high to the sky and then stretching a little bit more.

Try it now. Reach your hand up as high as you can. Did you do it? Ok, now reach up a little bit more.

See? Just when we think we can't grow anymore, we surprise ourselves and go a little bit higher. 

That's what I'm learning now, as I reach up a little bit more--that there's always a next level of personal growth. As we overcome, we begin to become a brand new creature, and if we choose, we can also flourish. And then? We will need to overcome, become and flourish again in a whole new way. It's not a checklist or a ladder we climb or a place we "arrive" and stay. Personal growth is a process, a cycle that repeats, a continuous journey we can choose to undertake.

The next time life seems to be beating you up, submit, surrender to what is and plant yourself deep in the mud. Then, G.R.O.W. You will become something much greater than you could have dreamed, catapulted to a higher and deeper knowing—of life, of love, of yourself, of the Divine.

~Excerpt From Dr. Hibbert's book, "This Is How We Grow". 

What "mud" are you currently in? Can you see the opportunity or jus the obstacle? How do you Grasp Repeating Opportunities for Wisdom through life's challenges? Share your thoughts and wisdom with us by leaving a comment, below.