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How the learn the lessons our struggles and pain are here to teach you. #lifelessons
Pain, Perspective, and the Next Right Action (2025 Update)
(First published in 2017, updated May 2025, because this message feels even more relevant today.)
There’s a lot of sh!t going on right now.
More wars. More fires. More floods. More political chaos. More climate instability. Hate speech echoing louder. Misinformation spreading faster than truth. And that’s just the global stuff.
Zoom in, and you’ll find people quietly carrying heartbreaks that don’t make the news—like a cancer diagnosis, a parent’s passing, losing a home, a crumbling marriage, a child who’s hurting, or goals that just… don’t pan out the way you hoped.
Let me be clear: I’m not saying that losing your home in a fire is the same as not getting the promotion. These are different levels of pain. But pain is still pain. Struggle is still struggle. And it all deserves to be acknowledged.
Because every single experience, no matter how big or small, shapes us.
And here’s the thing: pain and struggle have the power to bury us… or build us.
Victor Frankl, the Austrian psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor, wrote in Man’s Search for Meaning:
“Forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess except one thing—your freedom to choose how you respond to the situation.”
He knew unimaginable pain. And still, he believed in the possibility of purpose through suffering.
And while none of us would ever choose pain, it has a strange way of delivering exactly what we need to grow:
✨ Awareness – the first spark of change
💪 Resilience – the ability to stand back up
🌱 Belief – the inner knowing that you can, and will, do hard things
But let’s not sugarcoat it—these “gifts” are hard-earned. Sometimes we have to fall apart first. Sometimes we just have to breathe through it. Sometimes we have to borrow belief from others until we can rebuild our own.
But the truth I keep coming back to is this:
The hardest parts of life often carry the most important lessons—if we’re willing to look for them.
And no, the lessons aren’t always obvious. Sometimes they’re tangled in grief. Sometimes they’re just about learning to take the next breath. Or the next right action. Like getting out of bed. Asking for help. Choosing not to give up.
The fire might not feel fair. The diagnosis, the divorce, the loss, the world spinning off its axis—it might all feel like too much. And it is too much. But we’re not meant to make sense of it all in the moment. We’re meant to keep showing up, one small brave step at a time.
Because that’s where the change happens—in our response.
That’s how we become the people we were meant to be.
“What is to give light must endure burning.” – Dr. Viktor Frankl
So, here’s to rising from the hard stuff.
To becoming softer in our hearts and stronger in our spirits.
To being real with our pain and still finding purpose in it.
And to always—always—choosing the next right action.
With love,
Sally 💛
P.S. I share this as someone who lives a life of privilege. I grew up with loving parents, I’m a white woman, and I’ve had support that many others didn’t. But that doesn’t mean my pain (or yours) isn’t valid. One of the biggest disservices we can do to ourselves is to downplay our struggles because “others have it worse.”
Yes, keep perspective. But don’t silence your suffering.
You’re allowed to feel it. You’re allowed to learn from it.
And you’re allowed (supposed) to use it as fuel to do good in the world, because that’s how healing spreads.
