When The Worst Thing That Happened…

When the worst thing that happened to you turns out to be the best opportunity you’ve ever had!Life whacks all of us at some stage. I’m working with someone who is having to close down a business she had poured your heart and soul into. I’ve worked with people who were hit with redundancy; possible bankruptcy and many, many people who have lost significant relationships.
 
Massive events like these hit us like Mack trucks. When stuff happens, the last thing we want is platitudes or someone telling us to ‘get over it’. Getting over massive events in our lives takes time. Eventually we will get over whatever it was; we will get a new job or find a new partner or get out of the financial doldrums. It is when we are through whatever it was that we realise it actually was the best thing ever. The tragedy actually woke us up. We found a better job; or started a whole new business much better equipped or we found a new love much more suited to us.
 
Dr Elizabeth Kubler Ross works with cancer patients. She noticed that there were 4 stages of grief. Understanding those phases can bring immense relief in any life situation. It helps people know where they are emotionally in the process of what happened, it also helps understand that you cannot rush from stage one of grief to stage four overnight. Big stuff takes time to process.
 
Stage 1. Denial:
I can’t believe that has just happened. It’s not true. There must be some mistake
Stage 2. Resistance:
Anger. Why me? It’s just not fair? What did I do to deserve this?
Stage 3. Exploration:
If this is so, how do I manage? What do I need to do to feed my family; find a new job; get back on my feet; remember the happy times (in the case of losing a relationship)
Stage 4. Acceptance:
I get it – $%#t happens to everyone. I can cope. I can move on. I am bigger than this; stronger than this.  What can I learn from this? What was actually good about this? How can I turn this into a positive thing for myself and the people around me.
 
Many years ago as a marriage guidance counsellor, I worked with people who were still stuck in denial and/or resistance years after their relationship ended. Yes we need to grieve, yes we need to mourn our loss, but we need to find ways to move on otherwise WE get sick and stuck and depressed. This process isn’t linear either – you don’t move effortlessly from one to the other over a prescribed period of time. You can go through all of them in an hour, a day, a week, a month even. Just be aware that it is all normal. It is NOT moving through them that will be a problem.
 
Just occasionally in my newsletters, I will promote a book. Given that Mother’s Day is coming up I’m delighted to offer this inspirational book. It’s the story of 12 New Zealand women from all walks of life who faced all manner of challenges; got run over by the Mack truck (some of them several times) but got up and kept going. And yes it’s a ‘woman’s book – buy we ALL have Mum’s. Surprise your Mum on the 12th May with a book instead of the usual chocolates or flowers.
Ann Andrews CSP
Speaker, author, profiler, Life Member NSANZ

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Testimonial: “Ann thank you very much for your excellent presentation to our Annual Managers & Leadership Conference. We consider a delegate score of 3.7 a good result, and 4 or above as excellent. You scored 4.63 – this is not only the best score of the conference, it’s the best score for the year so far (out of 70 speakers)!”  EMA (Northern) Inc.

To book Ann to liven up your next conference call her on 0272 465 585.

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