Transcript
Speaker: What if the thing making you unhappy isn't what happened to you? What if it's the story you're telling yourself about what happened? Welcome to Wandering the Wild Mess with Heather Morgan. I am so happy you're here.
Speaker: I'm not the type to blame the dealer for a losing hand. That line has been stuck in my head lately. i heard in a Zach Bryan song and the more I thought about it, the more I realized how much of life comes down to perspective.
Speaker: Look, we know this, but do we think about it consciously enough? Because let's be honest, every single one of us has been dealt cards we didn't ask for.
Speaker: We've all experienced heartbreak of some sort. We've all experienced disappointment. We've all had moments where life didn't go according to plan. And when those things happen, it's really easy to fall into the mindset of why me? Why did this happen? Why didn't this work out? Why couldn't things have gone differently?
Speaker: But the older I get, the more I realize that what happens to us is only part of the story. The other part, and the more critical one, to be honest, is the meaning that we attach to it.
Speaker: Because two people can go through the exact same thing and walk away with completely different lives. We know this, but I think we often forget. Because one person gets their heart broken and decides they'll never love again,
Speaker: That feels relatable, I know, was especially right after divorce. But then another person gets their heart broken and learns how strong they are and how much they enjoyed partnership and love.
Speaker: One person loses something and spends years wishing life had been different while the other person loses something and discovers a path they never would have found otherwise.
Speaker: The event is the same, but the story is different. And I think so much of our happiness comes from the story we choose to tell ourself.
Speaker: I want to talk about what happens when life knocks you down. Because I know if you're listening, things have gotten hard in your life. And I want to talk about how we get back up and why sometimes changing your life starts with changing your perspective.
Speaker: A few weeks ago, I packed up the pub and headed to Kentucky. Now, if you've been listening to the podcast before, you already know that one of my favorite things to do when I feel feel overwhelmed is get outside and go hiking. That literally is what I did most of my separation was heading up to the Utah mountains and camping.
Speaker: I mean, hiking. I didn't camp, but I loved to camp, but I didn't by myself then. So if you put me on a trail and you give me some mountains, some trees and some fresh air, somehow everything starts making a little more sense and problems just seem so much smaller next to mountains.
Speaker: So I found myself hiking through Mammoth Cave National Park and somewhere along the trail, I stumbled into a lesson that I haven't been able to stop thinking about. And I often make things that happen in my life a lesson. I try to see what can I take from this. And as I came around the bend of the trail, I saw a family ahead of me and there was this little boy crying, not just a few tears, like full on heartbroken end of the world crying.
Speaker: I don't know what happened at first, but as I got closer, I realized he tripped over a rock and fallen and had fallen. And honestly, I felt for him. Falling hurts.
Speaker: No one wants that. It's embarrassing, especially when everyone sees it, all of his siblings and their friends and family and a whole group of people. But what stood out to me wasn't that he fell. It was that he had completely stopped hiking.
Speaker: He was laying there on the ground and it wasn't like he was looked visibly really injured. I think it was more the embarrassment and shock. And his dad was trying to comfort him and the other kids were trying to encourage him and everyone was trying to remind him that there was still a whole hike ahead, but all he could focus on was the fact that he had fallen.
Speaker: It's like he made that his whole spill now. But
Speaker: As time passed, I started thinking about what I would have said if it were my child. And I think I would have said, buddy, I know it hurts and I'm sorry you fail.
Speaker: And sometimes things happen that hurt. And sometimes we need a minute to cry about it and that's okay. But there's still a whole hike ahead of you. So let's let the tears fall and feel sad for a minute.
Speaker: Let's acknowledge the truth that it hurt. And then let's stand back up and keep going.
Speaker: And as I continued down that trail, I realized something. That is life. That's literally life. We're all hiking down our own trail.
Speaker: We're moving towards things we're excited about. We're spending time with the people we love. We're enjoying the view. and then out of nowhere, we trip over a rock. Maybe it's a breakup. Maybe it's a divorce. Maybe it's a losing someone you love. Maybe it's a dream that doesn't seem to work out. Maybe it's something you never saw coming.
Speaker: But suddenly all we can focus on is the fall. And before we know it, we've forgotten about the trail. We've forgotten about the view.
Speaker: We've forgotten about all of the beautiful things that exist because we're just focused on the pain.
Speaker: And I want you to think about that.
Speaker: Because here's what I've learned. The fall isn't what keeps us stuck. He was able to get back up if he wanted to. He wasn't broken. Nothing was was really injured.
Speaker: It's not the fall that was keeping him from wanting to keep hiking and moving. The fall isn't what keeps us stuck. It's the story we tell ourselves after the fall.
Speaker: Because every single person listening to this podcast, you, is going to, at one point or another, get knocked down.
Speaker: You will experience disappointment.
Speaker: And you probably are already, and you may again, experience heartbreak and experience loss.
Speaker: That part is unavoidable. It's part of the journey and the experience. But the question is, what happens next? What do you do when you fall?
Speaker: Do you sit there and cry and think, this is done, this is it, I'm never carrying myself through anything else, this humiliation, this pain, this frustration is is too much?
Speaker: And you sit beside the rock and pout? Nothing wrong with pouting for a moment, but do you want it to take the rest of the view? or do you get back up and keep hiking? Because one of the biggest lesson lessons I've learned over the years is that you can acknowledge pain without allowing it to define you.
Speaker: That was so much of my journey through this divorce. It hurt more than anything else.
Speaker: to have the life that I thought I would have forever ripped away from me.
Speaker: And i became sad without becoming sadness. You can experience loss without becoming a victim of it.
Speaker: You can have something hurt you deeply without allowing it to control the rest of your life. I lost my dad. I had dreams that didn't work out.
Speaker: I've experienced heartbreak, unwavering heartbreak, some of which I've never even mentioned to to many. And i've I've made mistakes and I've had seasons where I completely felt lost.
Speaker: And there were moments where I would have been so easy to let those things become my identity,
Speaker: but they're not my identity. They're just part of my story. They're chapters. They're not the entire book.
Speaker: I'm not going to let one fall on a hike prevent me from seeing the beautiful views ahead. and I think sometimes we forget that.
Speaker: We convince o ourselves that something painful happened. And because of that, the rest of our life has to be painful too. But one bad chapter does not mean the story is over. One fall does not mean the hike is over.
Speaker: One disappointment does not mean that something beautiful isn't waiting around the next corner for you. In fact, one of the funny things about that Kentucky trip is that I went on one trail specifically to see a spring I had looked up beforehand and I was so excited about it and I wanted to see it. And when I got there, it was closed. So the thing that I had planned to see wasn't even available for me to do.
Speaker: And I could have let that ruin my experience. I could have spent the rest of the hike frustrated about the thing that I didn't get. to experience because that was part of the reason that drew me there in the first place. But along the way, i ended up seeing things I never expected, like this literal bat cave, which is so cool.
Speaker: Being from Utah, like I guess there's bats. I don't know, but I never did that. So it was just such a cool experience. And it life leads you other things. And so isn't that life? Sometimes the things we want sometimes don't work out how we thought, the relationship, the opportunity, the plan, the timeline, the outcome we had imagined.
Speaker: But while we're mourning what didn't happen, and if we just sat there, we would miss what else is ahead, what else can happen for us. Unexpected opportunities and blessings. We miss people.
Speaker: We miss growth. We miss the things that might actually be better than what we had originally planned. And so I want to remind you that perspective changes everything.
Speaker: And lately I've been thinking a lot about another Zach Bryan line.
Speaker: He says, if I'm lucky enough, I'll only die on heels that are closest to my heart.
Speaker: And I love that because I think so many of us spend our lives fighting battles that don't really matter. We get frustrated. We get offended. We get upset.
Speaker: We spend so much energy carrying things that won't matter five minutes or five years from now. And sometimes the greatest gift we can give ourselves is deciding that what is actually worth our energy.
Speaker: What is worth our peace? What is actually worth carrying with us? Because if everything matters, then nothing matters.
Speaker: Don't let all the little stuff distract you from the big things that matter so much like the parents and the family of that child just wanting to enjoy his company and he didn't want to hear it because he'd rather be in his anger and pity
Speaker: than enjoy the view and he's a child he'll learn but have you
Speaker: If every hill is the hill we're dying on, that's exhausting. And honestly, one of the most freeing things I've learned is that not everything deserves an emotional reaction.
Speaker: Not everything deserves my peace. Not everything deserves my intention. Sometimes the healthiest things we can do is to let go and keep enjoying the view.
Speaker: Keep walking.
Speaker: I'll kind of finish this up by saying that I'm listening to The Power of Now. I've read it a number of times. and And one of the ideas that stood out to me was most of our suffering comes from either living in the past or worrying about the future.
Speaker: And I want you to think about that. Living in the past, so saying, oh my gosh, these things happened to me, or worrying about the future. Like, what if this doesn't happen? What if this doesn't work out? That is where all your suffering comes from.
Speaker: Because if you ask yourself right now, what's wrong in this moment, you probably don't have a good answer. Unless you're thinking about something that messed up in the past or could happen in the future.
Speaker: But in this moment, while you're listening to this podcast, everything is fine. So think about that.
Speaker: Most of our suffering isn't happening right now. It's happening in our minds. We're replaying something that already happened or worrying about something that hasn't happened yet. And in both situations, we're missing the present moment.
Speaker: We're missing the hike because we're focused on the rock. We're missing today's joy because we're reliving yesterday's pain. and we're worried about tomorrow's uncertainty,
Speaker: and that's just no way to live a joyful life because of life is what's happening right now.
Speaker: Not yesterday, not next year, but right now.
Speaker: So if life has knocked you down recently, let yourself feel it. Cry if you need to. Grieve if you need to. Gosh, be disappointed if you need to. Lord knows I've been there. There's so much that I felt disappointment because I had made my mind up about what my life should look like.
Speaker: But i had I came to a point where you can't stay there.
Speaker: just You can't unpack your bags and build a home there and say, I'm going to sit in this grief forever. Because there's so much trail left.
Speaker: There's still people to meet. There's still experiences to have. There's still places to go. There's dreams to chase. There's still reasons to laugh. And there's absolutely still so much hope.
Speaker: A hardship isn't the end. But the only way that you'll discover that is if you keep moving. So I'll leave you with this.
Speaker: And my my grandpa, he loved the saw the dealer, right, by Kenny Rogers. And I just want to remind you, you can't always control the hand you're dealt.
Speaker: but you can control how you play it. You got to know when to hold them, know when to fold them, know when to walk away, and know when to run. ah and just remember, you can't stop yourself from falling.
Speaker: It may happen, but you can choose whether you stay down. And sometimes changing your life starts with changing your mind.
Speaker: This was Wandering the Wild Mess with Heather Morgan. matter. matter
