Turning Negatives Into A Positive, Guest Blogger:Rosie Tran
By: Rosie Tran
A lot of people really hate suffering and think it is a bad thing. Also, there’s nothing worse than going through a bad experience and hearing someone say, “Everything happens for a reason!” You want to ring that person’s neck! You are in pain, and you really don’t want to hear that right now. The truth is, everything does happen for a reason, and that reason is to help us learn and grow. Suffering is a good thing, because it teaches us about ourselves and helps us to develop our character. If you study psychology, according to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs [Add link], the purpose of our life is to self-actualize, which basically means to learn about yourself and grow, in order to reach your highest potential. Most major religions believe that the purpose of our life is to become one with God, through Christ or whichever form of spirituality you believe in. To become one with God is to try to become the best version of yourself. You may never reach perfection, but it is that act of working towards that goal that is the path to spirituality.
When something bad happens to you, the point of it, is to look at yourself and find the lesson that the suffering was trying to teach you. In this, the suffering has meaning and purpose. There is nothing worse than pointless suffering. I want to share how I took an extremely negative situation and turned it into a positive and learned so much about myself. I was in a very abusive relationship for two years. My ex was the epitome of an abuser in every definition of the word. He would verbally, physically, and mentally abusive to me. When I got out of the relationship, I had to take a long, hard look at myself and see how I was responsible for ending up in that relationship. I am not talking about fault. I would never victim blame or condone my ex boyfriend’s abusive behavior. So, it wasn’t my fault that he was abusive, but it is my responsibility to take care of myself. I am responsible for myself, my emotions, actions and who I chose to be in relationship with. I needed to look at myself and see why and how I was attracted to someone with that many red flags. Another woman would have seen the early signs and run away. A healthier woman would have heard the first verbal insult and left, but I stayed for two years. I made up excuses to myself about why I loved him, instead of facing the reality that I was attracted to someone who was not worth my time.
A lot of people have the misconception that you can’t help who you fall in love with, but that is not true. Sexuality and sexual preference may very well be hard wired, but attraction to characteristics, personality, and even chemistry are not. If you came from an unhealthy or dysfunctional upbringing or past, you may fall in love with someone that is unhealthy or dysfunctional. Your baseline for attraction is off kilter, but the good news is it can be relearned. I had to rewire and retrain myself to learn to be attracted to healthier qualities and traits. It took me years in therapy and personal development classes to learn to break the cycle of unhealthy attraction. I started to become attracted to amazing, loving men, and I am now in a healthy and happy marriage for many years.
“But what if you are in a situation where you have no control at all?” you’re probably thinking. Believe it or not, even in a situation where you have no control at all, you can still control how you think and feel about things. Jewish psychologist Viktor Frankl talks about it in his semi-autobiographical book, “Man’s Search for Meaning” [Add Link] Even as a prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp, he was able to turn his negative situation into a positive, by the way he thought and reacted. You can take any of the worst horrific situations; war, rape, abuse and look for the lesson. The most profound lessons can come from the most horrific situations. For without war, we could not learn and appreciate peace. From abuse, we would not learn and truly appreciate kindness. From rape, we learn boundaries, self-worth, and respect. It is the ultimate and possibly the only choice that we have - how we see the World, and how we can change the bad into the good by looking within ourselves. We can have the power to transform a situation by seeing the lesson and use it to serve our highest purpose in life by self-actualizing. That is the most positive thing I can see.
