Sunshine in April

Makes us stronger, right? Or does it just make us tired? 

You’ve probably heard the phrase, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger?” There’s even a song about it – thank you Kelly Clarkson. I’ve thought about this phrase at different times and have decided whoever came up with it was in a fabulous state of denial. Maybe they had not been through serious life stuff, or they were trying to be encouraging in the midst of a nightmare situation. Either way, what doesn’t kill you can beat you to a pulp! It can take away your dignity, break down your resources, and leave you stranded on a desert island.

But maybe we need that fabulous state of denial at times. Just for a little while to get us through. Now deceased psychologist Richard Lazarus gave us the idea that a little bit of denial can help us reframe the negative space we’re in. It can help us step away from the things we have no control of. It can help get us through a trauma, especially a life altering trauma. And it can help us feel stronger when we’re worn out from life. Maybe we need a lot just for a little while. Or just a little a lot of the time.

When I first wrote this article almost a decade ago, I was feeling tired and worn out. I never shared or published it, just tucked it away in a computer file. At that time, I was thinking what hadn’t killed me wasn’t making me stronger but was slowly breaking my spirit. I had used all my resources and was desperately trying to build new ones. Some of those things that I had been working so hard to keep in the denial space were racing out of me left and right. That ‘little bit of denial’ had turned into a lot of denial for a long period of time.  

A lot of us find ourselves in those situations where we’ve just put our heads down and kept going despite the loud messages and red flags that keep trying to tell us we are not ok. We slowly learn to keep blocking that noise yelling that we need to face and do something. That we need to break down those walls of denial because it is not making us stronger but killing us.

Denial doesn’t have to be from something major like addiction or ignoring the pain that keeps getting worse. It can be from the day-to-day grind where we think we must keep going down the path we’re on because there may be too many consequences otherwise. What we don’t allow ourselves to see is by doing this, and getting too comfortable in that space, is the emotional pain keeps getting worse inside of us. Maybe we really are in a state of addiction to the current situation and anything outside of that ‘norm’ is overwhelming to even think of.

When I wrote the initial draft of this, I was starting to make changes for my own health and wellbeing. I had made a major life change a year or so prior, and it did help but only so much. I was building in smaller changes but chose not to incorporate other big changes because of the domino effect it would have had. I chose to set aside some of my needs for the needs of others. I am absolutely no martyr or saint in any way. I simply made a choice to keep some of my own denial going for the health and well-being of others.

Have your trials and tribulations made you stronger? Have they made you tired? In the end, it’s probably a bit of both. And that is part of life and living.

How do we make changes, even in the face of obstacles that scare the hell out of us? Or do we keep going with the status quo, allowing ourselves to remain in that state no matter the consequences? 

More importantly, are you in a major state of denial or using just a little to help keep you going? The ability to reframe can help us experience life through new lenses. How will you use denial in healthy ways, to help stay the course when necessary? And how will you let it go when you’re done with it? 

No matter what direction we choose, each day we lose a little more of the one commodity we will never get back? TIME.