Surviving...I learned the hard way but you don't have to

Take It From Me: I Learned the Hard Way, But You Can Learn From Me

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When your life falls apart, everyone has advice for you. People who have never stood in the wreckage of their own lives will tell you how to rebuild yours. They will offer you platitudes, they will tell you to stay positive, and they will assure you that time heals all wounds.

I am not going to do that.

I am not writing this from the other side of the storm. I am not standing on a mountaintop, fully healed, looking back at the valley. I am writing this from the middle of the fire. My hands are still dirty from the ash. I am still doing the quiet, exhausting, unglamorous work of surviving every single day.

But because I am in it, I know what actually works. I know what keeps you breathing when the air feels too heavy. I had to learn these things the hard way, by being broken down to my foundation and forced to figure out how to stand back up. But you don't have to learn it the hard way. You can learn it from me.

If you are walking through your own personal hell right now, here is how you actually survive it.

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First, you have to give yourself permission to be exactly where you are. We are conditioned to believe that we have to be strong all the time, that falling apart is a sign of weakness. It isn't. When the worst thing that can happen to you actually happens, you are allowed to be devastated. You are allowed to be angry. You are allowed to grieve the life you thought you were going to have. Do not let anyone rush your grief or tell you to "get over it." The only way out of the darkness is straight through it. Feel it all, but do not let it consume you.

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Second, you have to let people carry you. This was the hardest lesson for me to learn. I have always been the fighter, the one who stands in the gap for others. But when you have nothing left to give, you have to let go of your pride. When someone who owes you nothing steps into the fire and says, "I've got this," you have to let them have it. Let them fight for you. Let them stand in court for you. Let them get angry for you. True strength is not always about standing on your own two feet; sometimes, it is having the courage to let someone else hold you up until you can breathe again.

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Third, you have to ruthlessly protect your peace. When your world breaks, you will quickly find out who your true people are. Some will walk away. Some will throw stones. Let them go. Do not waste a single ounce of your precious, limited energy trying to convince people of your worth or your truth. Instead, take all of that energy and pour it into the people who stayed. Define your life not by who walked away, but by who walked into the fire with you. Build your new foundation entirely around them.

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Fourth, you have to do the next right thing. When you look at the entirety of your broken life, it is paralyzing. You cannot rebuild a house in a day. So don't try. Just do the next right thing. Get out of bed. Take a shower. Show up to work. Answer one email. Eat one meal. Surviving is not a grand, sweeping gesture. It is a series of tiny, invisible choices you make a hundred times a day to simply keep going.

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Finally, you have to choose your mindset. You cannot control what happened to you. You cannot control the betrayal, the loss, or the cruelty of others. But you have absolute control over what you do next. You can choose to let the fire destroy you, or you can choose to let it forge you.

I chose to let it forge me.

I am choosing to look for the light, even when the darkness is overwhelming. I am choosing to be profoundly grateful for the colleagues and friends who became my armor when I had none left. I am choosing to take the worst thing that has ever happened to me and use it to become a better, fiercer, more compassionate person for others.

I am not healed yet. But I am surviving. And if I can do it, standing right here in the middle of the wreckage, so can you.

Take it from me. It is going to be relentlessly hard. It is going to be exhausting. But you are stronger than the things that are trying to break you. Let people carry you when you need it, do the next right thing, and refuse to let the people who broke you write the ending to your story.

You are going to survive this. And the person you are becoming on the other side is going to be magnificent.

Judith L. Hampton

Attorney at Law

Hampton Law Firm, LLC