Photo by Pacific Austin on Unsplash
"The night is always darkest just before the dawn..."
I found myself using that saying today. It's one that you have undoubtedly heard before. As I was saying it, I began to realize how utterly stupid this saying is. It has no scientific merit, and as a sympathy card one-liner it can be pretty damaging. Think about it, if the sun is directly over head at noon, generally speaking, then it's at it's opposite position at midnight, not 4am or 5am. That stuck out to me for a few reasons, not the least of which is that this saying is evidence that people don't actually think about what they are saying before they say it. I also began to consider how these thoughts should affect my response to difficult situations.
Imagine being stranded in the ocean. The wind and the waves are tossing your life raft back and fourth. You can't imagine being able to withstand much more of this assault. Your only hope is a radio transceiver that you managed to grab as your ship went down. You were able to reach a nearby boat who promised to come look for you at dawn. They said there would be no point in looking right now because it was too dark. If you think the saying is true, you will be filled with hope for a quickly approaching rescue. A rescue that may actually be six or seven hours away.
How might you prepare your heart, mind, or body differently if know your rescue is coming within the hour as opposed to days, months, or years from now.
I have realized that coming to grips with the reality of your personal situation is the hardest thing in the world to do, but it might just save your life. That reality is no more clearly illustrated than in the movie Cast Away. If you haven't seen this movie, well that's ridiculous because it's almost 20 years old. The movie (**Spoilers!! But seriously I shouldn't have to do this**) is about a man, played by Tom Hanks, who is an executive at FedEx. He's on a FedEx plane that goes down over the ocean, and he washes up on the beach of some island with some random FedEx packages (That's what happened to my P.O.D. CD! You're welcome Tom.) At first he has some small victories. He finds some small tools in the packages that washed up with him. He finds some coconuts to eat, and he starts to think through how to get off the island. However, his hope is soon turned to despair when he tries to escape the island on a makeshift raft. The raft is destroyed by the waves, and he is once again washed onto the shore of an island that now seems more like a coffin than a sanctuary. He is faced with the reality that rescue might never come.
In my life, I know that my rescue is far away. I live everyday with chronic pain all over my body from a disease called Fibromyalgia. It affects every facet of my daily life. There is no cure, and the treatment options available are limited, filled with their own negative side effects, and only marginally decrease the pain. I spent the first 5 or 6 years of my life with Fibromyalgia sitting on the beach waiting for rescue. I just knew that the newest treatment option at the time would be the answer, and every time, I was faced with reality. I was confronted by the truth constantly, and every time, I ignored the truth, and moved on to the next big thing. The truth is that I won't be rescued anytime soon. The truth is that I am more likely to live a long life and die with Fibromyalgia than to be miraculously healed. The truth is that every day of that life I'm more likely to wake up with pain, or not be able to sleep at all, than to wake up refreshed and pain free. The truth is that I'm more likely to never figure out how to explain this invisible disease to anyone, including those closest to me, than I am to communicate effectively exactly what I'm going through and how to help.
That's a hard truth to accept, but it has saved my life.
After the first escape attempt, Tom Hanks' character is faced with reality. He has to figure out how to survive long-term on the island, or he will die before he has a chance to escape. He finds a shelter, develops more advanced tools, creates fire, and establishes a social system with his friend Wilson who is a volleyball.
The climax of the movie, in my opinion, is the scene where Tom Hanks' character performs his own dental work. Throughout the first half of the movie he keeps referring to a toothache that he plans to fix when he gets back. While he is on the island the pain get's too bad to bear. He uses an ice skate and a rock and bashes the tooth out of his head. The very next scene, a long time has passed, and he has become an avid hunter and fisherman. We are then shown his collection of slowly acquired resources, including a better raft that will eventually get him to safety. What this collection of scenes illustrates so clearly is the effect that understanding your reality has on your ability to move forward. At the beginning of the movie we see him putting off going to the dentist. Even at the beginning of his stay on the island we see him trying to ignore the pain and further cementing his denial of reality. The tides begin to shift when he realizes that the most imminent threat to his life is an infected tooth and not the island.
I had to come to the realization that Fibromyalgia is not gonna kill me unless I let it.
Once I understood that, I was finally able to move forward. I was able to get past my reality to see that I had to work hard if I was ever going to enjoy life again. It was up to me to to seek joy out, because joy wasn't actively looking for me. That might sound really negative to some, but it's the reality for most. Fibromyalgia was not going to kill me. Despair was.
Don't get me wrong, I have hope, but hope is designed to help us persevere through difficult times. The problem was that I wasn't persevering, I was stuck in my own despair, and I quickly ran out of hope. I finally realized that hope is meant to be partnered with hard work and perseverance.
I had to work hard to find real joy and happiness. True joy does not come at the expense of others. All the selfish things that we think make us happy only isolate us from the people that we care about most, and leave us full of regret to add to the already existing pain. I had to change what I was actually aiming for when I said that I want to be happy.
At the end of the movie, Tom Hanks finds rescue from the island only to find that his whole life has moved on without him. His wife has married another man, and all his family moved on thinking he was dead. Experiencing a crisis of faith he decides to seek out the owner of the one package he did not open while he was stranded. He arrives to the house to find nobody home. As he is leaving he sees a beautiful woman in a pickup truck and notices the same symbol that was on the package is on her truck. He is at a crossroads, literally and figuratively, and the movie ends with him looking in the direction of the beautiful woman's pickup truck and smiling.
How we respond to tragedy reveals a great deal about our character.
"We don't even know how strong we are until we are forced to bring that hidden strength forward. In times of tragedy, of war, of necessity, people do amazing things. The human capacity for survival and renewal is awesome."
-Isabel Allende-
I'd love to hear how you are overcoming grief in your daily life. You can email me at inbox@jeremywoodring.com or find me on twitter @jwood4904 or Facebook at Facebook.com/jeremy.woodring or simply leave a message in the comments