Things Happening For You

I've been thinking about the things that feel deeply, outrageously unfair.

The job that didn't come through. The relationship that fell apart. The diagnosis nobody saw coming. The betrayal from someone you trusted completely. The plan you had for your life that life had absolutely no intention of honouring! 

I have recently had many moments - most of us have had them - where you look at what you're dealing with and think: I did not sign up for this!

And yet. Here you are.

I have a life-changing shift that might help. It’s incredibly hard to hear when you are right in the middle of the hard stuff but its something I believe deeply in: Life is not happening to you. It is happening for you. 

I know. When you're sitting in the wreckage of something you didn't choose and didn't want, that idea can feel like an insult. Like someone handing you a greeting card in a burning building. But stay with me…

The lesson and the gift rarely appear on the same day!

That's the part nobody tells you. We expect that if there is a reason for something, if there is growth to be had or wisdom to be earnt, that we should be able to see it immediately. We want the receipt for our suffering. We want the lesson handed to us neatly, promptly, with a bow on top.

It almost never works like that.

The gift is usually delivered much, much later. Sometimes years later. Sometimes it arrives quietly, in a conversation you weren't expecting, or a moment of realisation at 11pm on a Tuesday when you suddenly understand why that thing had to happen the way it did.

I have lived this. I have sat with people while they lived this. The relationship that ended brutally that turned out to be the beginning of the person they were always meant to become. The redundancy that felt like humiliation, that led to the business they'd been too scared to start. The health crisis that stopped everything, that turned out to be the only thing loud enough to make them finally listen to themselves.

None of those people could see any of that at the time. At the time, it just hurt. And the hurt is real. Let's not skip over that part! 

This is not about toxic positivity. It is not about slapping a "growth mindset" sticker over genuine pain and pretending it's fine. 

Hard things are hard. Loss is loss. Grief is grief. Some chapters of life are brutal and they deserve to be acknowledged as such.

The shift is not about denying what's hard. It's about being willing to hold, alongside the difficulty, a quiet openness to the possibility that this, whatever this is, might be serving you in ways you cannot yet see.

Your soul, the deepest, wisest part of you, already knows this. It keeps directing you towards the experiences and people and situations that will help you grow, even when your human brain is screaming that this is a terrible idea and you'd like to get off the ride now!

I strongly believe that the same lesson will keep showing up until you learn it. This is the part worth paying attention to. If you keep finding yourself in the same situation, the same dynamics at work, the same patterns in relationships, the same feelings of resentment or powerlessness or being overlooked, that is not bad luck. That is an invitation.

Life is extraordinarily patient. It will keep sending you the same curriculum, in different packaging, until you finally open it! The question worth sitting with is not "why does this keep happening to me?" but rather "what is this trying to teach me?" 

The reframe - from to me to for me - changes everything. It shifts you out of victimhood and into agency. It makes you a participant in your own life rather than a bystander watching things happen at you.

What if you are not being punished. You are being shaped.

The pressure that makes a diamond is not gentle. The fire that strengthens steel is not comfortable. And the experiences that grow you into the fullest, wisest, most expansive version of yourself are rarely the easy ones. The easy ones are lovely. But they are not the ones that change you.

One day, you will look back at the very thing that felt most unfair, most devastating, most not-what-you-planned, and you will see it differently. Not because the pain wasn't real. But because you will be able to see what it made possible. What it cracked open. What it taught you about yourself that nothing else could have.

If you are interested in an amazing book that has helped me get through some tough stuff, I highly recommend Broken Open by Elizabeth Lesser.