I didn’t start college until I was in my late forties. Heck…I didn’t even graduate from high school. I dropped out about three months into my senior year. I will never forget how one of my teachers, Mr Burns, told me, “If you drop out now, you will never finish school and get a diploma.” Boy was he wrong! I would have graduated in the class of 1977, but instead I received my GED in 1979. I’m not sure how many people who graduated could actually pass that six hour GED test, but I did it! I’m happy to say I have a couple of college degrees under my belt as well. I pushed pass the difficult times and accomplished my high school diploma and college degrees.

We have all faced challenges and difficult times throughout our life. Most of us also wonder the same thing as the book titled, “When Bad Things Happen to Good People.” I want to say, bad things happen to everyone, it doesn’t matter who you are or how much money you have or how popular you are…You WILL go through difficult and bad times.

How we handle the difficult times is what is important. I have grown to face difficult times with a better attitude. You can’t change what happens to you, but you can learn from what happens to you. I loved going to work being a counselor, social worker, and a life coach. My right vocal cord became paralyzed and I was told about six months ago my left vocal cord is becoming paralyzed. I am unable to breathe very well and if I talk too long I become very winded.

I had to quit working at the hospital, which was so difficult for me. I am focusing on building my practice as a life coach and working on my blog, which I love wholeheartedly. Life can take away what we love to do, but life also can open up new adventures that we didn’t realize we could do. After my surgery I will not have much of a voice, but I will have a whisper….I am blessed to have a whisper and if I do happen to lose my voice completely….I will be blessed to have my blog to help others and can still help counsel and/or life coach others via zoom and me writing.

When we go through difficult times, our emotions go through something like the five stages of the grieving process. I like to call them…

1. Being Shocked: The “I can’t believe this happened or is happening to me” stage. Some difficult times take the wind out of us. We are in disbelief, shocked, stunned, baffled, and start to wonder, “Why Me?” This stage happens to everyone throughout life. The shock will lessen with time.
2. Questioning Ourselves: When difficult times happen to us, we start to question what we did to make it happen. Please don’t blame yourself, but evaluate what happened to cause this difficult time. Sometimes our difficult times are out of our control, other times we can evaluate and change behaviors to not allow the event to happen again and if it does happen again, you will be able to handle it better. Please don’t do the “I should of, I could of, if only I would of” self talk. Look at the situation and make a game plan moving forward, not backwards.
3. Anger: We become pissed off to say the least. We always tend to become very mad when we are faced with difficult times. Our first reaction is to become irritated, pissed off, wonder “why me” and become confused. These are all normal reactions to begin with. Once the anger starts to lessen, then we can make a rational game plan on how to attack and overcome the difficult time.
4. Sadness/Disappointment/Blame: After the anger comes sadness and disappointment. Sometimes these stages do not go in order, but you will experience all of them. We become disappointed in ourselves and/or others wondering what went wrong. We become sad that we didn’t see the difficult time approaching us, and then we blame ourselves and others for what happened. Focus on yourself, heal yourself and then move forward.
5. Acceptance/Moving On: Time….remember this word…we all need time when it deals with difficult times. We may never accept what has happened to us, but we can move on. Let me repeat that for you….We may never accept what has happened to us…but we can move on. I say “can” because sometimes people believe they “can’t” move on from a difficult life situation, but we can if we want to. We may never forget what has happened to us and we may have trouble accepting what happened to us, but we CAN move on….If we want to. It all takes time and baby steps. Heck it took me decades to move on from being sexually abused as a child. I wish I wouldn’t have wasted so much of my life thinking about what happened to me and moved on with my head held high as I do today.

All of these steps take time, lots of time and you will get through the difficult times. I struggled so much after being sexually abused and I had no one to turn to back then.

If you are facing difficult times and you need someone to talk to other than family members or friends, please seek out a counselor or a life coach to help you through the difficult times. I am here to help you all.

Trust the Journey and Life Lessons,

Alexis Life Coach Inner Abilities LLC

Alexis BSc(Psyc), MILC

Holistic Life Coach & Counselor