Remember, the most significant and most difficulties you will ever have to overcome is your mind. Overcome that, and you can endure anything! Of course, that’s way easier to say than to do, especially when life as you know it starts falling apart.

If you’ve been reading my pages on Facebook: The Warrior Tribe and Aligning Within; and my website AligningWithin.com; you know that I had to deal with several painful life changes in the past few years, back-to-back. These included:

• Financial uncertainty 
• breadwinning employment layoff
• Troubled marriage
• Losing my Aunt to cancer
• Breaking ties with a family member who betrayed me.
• Losing myself and spiraling down the hate hole 
•  Distress conditions in my health; body, mind, and spirit

It all happened so quickly. Those experiences compounded on one another, knocking me down and driving the wind right out of my sails for a couple of years straight. At times, I felt like I had no strength left to push onward.

But as I navigated these realities one tiny step at a time—facing the pain and problems instead of distracting myself from it—I stumbled across particles of strength and wisdom that I began to collect and build on. I gradually learned how to catch myself in negative states of emotional turmoil, so I could overcome the emotions that had once overcome me; I called” the black hole, the whole of hate. “And with each passing day, I saw more beauty hidden in life’s most painful changes.

You see, changes and even deaths are simply endings, which are all an essential part of living. And all occurrences are necessary for beauty. Contrarily, it’s difficult to appreciate someone or something because they are unlimited. Limits illuminate beauty—they are reminders that we need to be aware of this beautiful person or situation and enjoy this beautiful thing called life. Every ending is also a beginning, because while we have lost someone or something special, this ending, like every loss, is a moment of reinvention.

Although heartbreaking, it forces us to reinvent our lives, and in this reinvention is an opportunity to experience beauty in new, unseen ways and places. And, of course, every ending is an opportunity to celebrate the beautiful, ever-changing journey we’re on, and to be thankful for what it has shown us and taught us along the way.Getting to this point of understanding—changing your thinking—again, is far from easy. But it’s honestly worth every bit of effort you can conjure.

We all need a healthy reminder like this sometimes—that if we want to be happier, we need to do the hard things, to face the unexpected losses and painful life changes that we’re going to confront no matter how much we try to resist them. We need a reminder to face down our distress and negative thinking and leverage it to take the next step. Sometimes, we need a reminder that we’re not done yet—that today is worth fighting.

You may not be responsible for everything that happened to you in the past, or everything that’s happening to you right now, but you need to be accountable for standing firm and undoing the thinking patterns these occurrences create. It’s about thinking better so you can ultimately live a better life!