“Hardships often prepare ordinary people for extraordinary destiny.”

– C.S Lewis

By the time most of us reach adulthood we will have experienced some for a form of difficulty in our past. Whether it is loss, sadness, disappointment, trauma or pain, it has created a memory that has an imprint within us. Part of our humanness is to experience both the light and the darkness but it is how we choose to live with this imprint that impacts our entire livelihood.

Some of us move forward and convince ourselves our wounds never impacted us and that the past is in the past. There is a numbness that supports our survival. Others live their lives feeling limited by their past and blame what happened to them to be the reason they are not living the life they dreamt of. In this instance, one has become a victim of their past.

Whether you choose to ignore or blame the painful parts of your past the result is the same – it is there, it has imprinted on you.

Whether sub-consciously or consciously it has formed who you are today.

If you are on the journey of personal growth, you will come to a point where you will want and need to evolve beyond your past.

I like to call these difficult parts of your past your ‘grit’. There are two meanings to the word grit – one is ‘small loose particles of stone’. This is the kind of grit that when you get it in your eye or your shoe, it irritates you, it hurts, it’s always there reminding you of how uncomfortable it is.

The other meaning for grit is ‘courage and resolve – the strength of character’ The dictionary says it is synonymous with bravery, backbone, spirit, moral fibre and resolution.

You have a choice on how you view your past. You can choose it to be the grit that becomes your Achilles heel, or you can choose it to be the gift and the teaching that gave you courage, strength and made you who you are today.

For some, the idea of seeing your hardships and suffering as a gift might feel unfathomable. These difficult times might be so ingrained in your life story that you would feel like a traitor to make them your gift. There is always a glimmer of positivity in even the darkest times.

For example:

Perhaps you grew up with an abusive father, he brought fear and unrest in the house. Having this experience gave you the strength and resolve to choose a kind loving partner for yourself so you felt safe and loved in your home and who was a good father for your children – here there is a gift in the grit.

When you step into your power of recreating the meaning of your past, you can recreate your future from a more positive and powerful standpoint. You liberate yourself from your past and start to live into your future. Instead of being a victim of your past you become a crusader, sharing your story and your gifts with others. You start to view the difficult times (past and present) as a gift that is there to shape you and show you the way forward.

Seeing your suffering (your grit) as a teaching or a gift helps to change your mindset from ‘life is happening to me’ to ‘life is happening for me’. You no longer become separate from life.

When you decide to see your hardships as your gifts this is when you will experience the greatest spiritual growth. Everything that happens to you is preparing you for your next evolution of yourself.

Let your grit be your gift.

Questions:

1. Identify a painful or difficult time in your past
2. Find 3 things that this event taught you?
3. Share 1- 3 positive personal traits you have gained from this experience
4. How has your grit become a gift and how could you share this with others?