HOW TO LIVE A LIFE UNBROKEN: 10 TIPS TO GET YOU THERE
I have developed 10 tips to show you how to live a life unbroken. Over the last couple of years, through some new moments of brokenness, I have reflected and delved deeper into what I have learned in the last 30 years living my life with Spinal Cord Injury and most recently losing my rock in life - my mother.
We all experience brokenness in life and regardless what the broken you experience entails, whether it is financial, emotional, physical etc. there are some fundamental tips that will help you get unbroken and live life with the broken and beyond.
The ten tips are:
1. Expect the unexpected
2. Your life your choice
3. Don’t let your ego rule your mind
4. Be your own best friend
5. Let go of the guilt
6. Forgive and forget
7. Mindset matters
8. Always look for the silver lining
9. Share your broken
10. Find your purpose
1. Expect the Unexpected
The only guarantee in life is change. The sooner you adopt the mindset to expect the unexpected the less harsh life will seem. Know that plans will not go to plan and that is ok. It is how life works. There are lessons to learn along the way.
None of the plans I had at the end of Year 12 for my future actually eventuated the way I had imagined for myself. I didn’t end up working for a multinational in hospitality where I could travel as part of my job. I didn’t meet my partner by 25 and start a family by 30. All my plans had to be totally mapped out again after my car crash. A new level of normal had to be factored in. I have always said to students when I present my story, put your plans in sand not cement… because they will definitely change. Being flexible is important when coping with life changes.
Often it is the thing that you dread the most that will happen - to teach you to cope and develop the life skills that you need to pursue your path. The ability to learn to get ‘comfortable in the uncomfortable’ will make change so much more bearable. It gives you the ability to take on any kind of brokenness and turn it into a meaningful life. The only way to become comfortable in the uncomfortable is to consciously put yourself there. Usually it starts out of necessity, but it then becomes part of the norm and eventually you say ‘bring it on!’ with no fear.
2. Your Life Your Choice
How you react and cope with the broken is ultimately your choice. You have the responsibility to own it and decide what to do with it. My tip - don’t deny it. Embrace the broken and learn to live with the broken. What do I mean by that? You could let yourself be defined by the broken and focus on all the things you can’t do. All the things it has taken away. That is easy to do. Especially when the core of how you see yourself is impacted in such a fundamental way.
When the spinal specialist came to me in intensive care and I was told that ‘you have been in a crash, you have broken your back and you will never walk again’, that shook me to the core. Who am I now? What will I be able to do? How will people see me now? Am I good enough? These are all thoughts and emotions whirling round in my head.
These are some of the emotions that shake you and disturb you until you choose to accept your broken. This can take a while and that is ok, your past experiences will impact the time it takes to accept what is now. Give yourself the time it needs, eventually you will get there. Don’t beat yourself up and don’t compare yourself to others in the same situation. A spinal injury or any other type of broken is unique for every single person. The classification or label may be the same, paraplegia or quadriplegia with respect to SCI, but the outcome is individual. All other types of broken can seem the same, but each case is individual. Focus on you and your acceptance of you.
Once acceptance is reached you can live in the broken and create a full and rich life. You have the responsibility to own that, no one else can do it for you.
3. Don’t Let Your Ego Rule Your Mind
Most of the time it is your ego that holds you back - from acceptance, from progress, from living life to the full. Many years ago, I participated in a Leadership Forum and was presented with the notion of ego vs spirit. The idea that when you think of doing something positive in life like starting a new career or new business, letting your spirit fly and imagine great things for yourself. Your ego pipes up and starts to shut you down, creating doubt and fear.
Being aware of how your mind works is half the battle. Consciously hearing that self-talk and identifying which voice is speaking goes a long way to numbing out the ego voice. It is easier to identify the ego voice when you have been made aware that there are two voices, two personas that we work with. I dedicated a whole blog on this topic. Have a read of The Battle of Ego Vs Spirit, it gives you much more detail of how it all works.
Letting go of ego is so liberating and a big step towards following your true path. Having a meaningful life, impacting others in a positive way is what you are rewarded with. Operate from your heart not just your mind.
4. Be Your Own Best Friend
Before you can feel you belong and are accepted, you need to accept yourself. Be your own best friend. It’s not always easy to do, especially if ego talk is strong in your mindset. However, if you don’t love yourself first, how can you expect others to love you? Sometimes you fall into relationships thinking you are in love, but if you haven’t done the groundwork on yourself first, the relationship may come up against obstacles.
It took me 27 years to meet my partner. At first, I thought it was because the guys were young and immature and were all about looks. Thinking they only saw the wheelchair first. What I have realised since is that I was also projecting that onto them. I saw the wheelchair first, hence so would they.
When I worked on myself and started accepting my reflection on various levels. That’s when I started attracting the right people in my life. It needed me to let go, be comfortable with that and accept myself, recognising I am enough just as I am.
You can’t compare yourself to others, no one has travelled your path, it may have been similar but not exactly the same. So, take heart in knowing that your life is valuable in all its splendid uniqueness. Feeling safe by letting go… this is how I did it!
5. Let go of the guilt
One of the deepest emotions/baggage that you carry after a big life changing event, is guilt. Whether it is self-imposed or thrust upon you, guilt plays a debilitating role in self-image and feelings of worthiness.
For me I felt guilty on so many levels, from the guilt of not having had my seatbelt on properly in the crash, having to live with the knowledge that I was partly responsible for the outcome of my injuries. The guilt of the extra workload and emotional trauma I was putting my family and friends through due to my injuries.
Guilt held me back for so long. The guilty thoughts that even if I met someone, I would be a burden on them. Guilt – the fallout from trauma is just so heavy and so critically important to let it go. You cannot move forward if you are weighed down by the feelings of guilt.
6. Forgive and Forget
One of the toughest things to do is to forgive and forget - others and especially yourself. It takes a few strategies to get to a point where forgiveness is possible and with time, to forget too.
One of the strategies is to put yourself in other people’s shoes to gain understanding. That is the only way you can gather perspective to understand why a person has behaved a certain way. This in turn gives you understanding and helps the process of forgiveness. Often it is not because they necessarily deserve forgiveness but because it is what you need to do to move on and heal from the hurt. Understanding how the other shoe fits reduces judgement and opens the mind.
How often do you judge? Yourself and others? It is engrained in our DNA to be self-critical and in turn judgemental of others too. It takes a lifetime of experiences, education, compassion and empathy to let go of judgement and instead operate from a base of acceptance. Again, it is that ego voice playing out and vying for your support.
Self-judgement is probably the most debilitating voice and you hear it the loudest. It takes courage to turn away from that voice and believe and trust yourself enough to forgive what you perceive you have done.
Forgiving yourself is the most healing thing you can do for your mind and your heart. Take a step back and see the situation through someone else’s eyes…would they judge you so harshly, would they forgive you? Most of the time they would do that way faster than you would do it for yourself.
7. Mindset Matters
Your mind controls your body and has the most power to direct your actions. The type of mindset you operate from will dictate the outcome you can expect. Learn to work with a growth mindset instead of a fixed mindset. A growth mindset is open and accepting of possibilities. A fixed mindset is narrow and limiting.
By operating from a growth mindset, you will be open to learn about others and yourself, seeking solutions. You don’t approach a situation thinking you know everything about it alreasdy, instead you will approach it with the desire to learn more from others to complete the perspective. To give you a full, all round perspective.
The attitude you project will have huge impact on the feedback you get. Remember that mirror? You are a reflection of others and they are a reflection of you.
Seek to learn from what is making you uncomfortable. You are always dished the one thing you don’t want to face, so when you see it coming, use a growth mindset to seek understanding. Don’t be afraid of it, instead embrace it as an opportunity to learn and evolve, elevate your heart to a new level. Attitude is everything!
8. Always look for the silver lining
If there is one motto I have always lived by is ‘look for the silver lining’. I don’t mean sugar coat things and ignore reality but rather see a balanced perspective, see the positive side of the situation.
This strategy helps identify the reason things happen and allows gratefulness to set in. By consciously searching for the silver lining, we train ourselves to be open and solution focussed.
Focussing on the silver lining lets you ease the pain and hurt of a situation and gives purpose and understanding to why you are going through this brokenness. You go from pain to purpose, making daily tasks easier to bear.
Subconsciously I have always used this strategy, I must be wired that way. From as early as a teenager writing in my journal, capturing my negative moments. Each entry would always be backed up with a positive outcome. Whether it be that I had learnt something from the experience, it helped someone else or something good happened as a result. The silver lining always helped me accept the bad things that happen in life. To see them in a more balanced view.
This automatic reflex to always see the silver lining is what has allowed me to amortise the pain and suffering in the big traumas of my life as well as everyday events. It helps to complete the picture and instil hope and faith in a good tomorrow.
9. Share your broken
Along with all the above tips, sharing your broken is probably the most healing part. By helping and educating others about your broken gives your broken meaning and purpose.
From early days post my crash, I went back to school to talk to the students about my injury. I never refused an opportunity to educate others. It dawned on me very early on that education was the way society would change their perception about disability.
At times it was funny, some of the questions so innocently pure and at other times it was confronting. This process allowed me to learn to be comfortable in the uncomfortable.
At the same time, by sharing the experience, it helped normalise it and gave me opportunity to heal. Finding acceptance from others went far and wide in my path to accepting myself. It made me feel like I still did belong to this community who operate so differently to me physically.
Educating others has been the one thing that has allowed me to break down barriers and open people’s minds about disability. My broken, when shared, has purpose and elevates others to be the best they can be. Having that kind of impact on others helps me accept why this broken was gifted to me.
10. Find your purpose
Finding your purpose can be obvious for some and hidden for so many others. You often spend a lifetime searching and looking for what you are meant to do during your time on Earth.
I do believe your purpose is linked to your broken. The trauma you experience in your brokenness is there to define your purpose. However, you have to go through the process to accept your broken before you can see your purpose. You have to do the internal work it takes to come out the other end and define your purpose.
Purpose gives you freedom, I found that the more I stopped trying to control every aspect of my life, the more purpose is revealed to me. Letting go of control is at the core of learning what patience is all about. It takes patience, belief and trust in yourself to define purpose.
It’s the small steps that lead to great leaps. Embrace your purpose and follow the path you are destined to follow. Everything you have done so far has been meaningful for the path you are on today. It is a reflection of the uniqueness of you.
