When I’m in pain and life feels broken all around me, my mind seems to automatically default to questions like: What’s wrong with me? What do I need to fix? What do I need to do better?
It makes sense. I’m hurting. I feel broken and bruised and beaten up by life. Of course, I want to know what to fix to make things better.
But here’s the thing: our minds are very, very good at searching out and finding answers to the questions we ask.
When I ask about what’s wrong with me, my mind goes into hyperdrive to seek out and find answers to that question. It ignores everything that’s right, everything that’s good, everything that’s working, and instead it serves up everything it can possibly find about what’s wrong with me.
I don’t know about you, but when I’m already in pain and feeling mangled by life, the last thing I find helpful is my mind serving up an endless list of all the things that are “wrong” with me that I need to “fix.” All that does is leave me feeling even more beat up, weighed down, discouraged, and hopeless.
A better set of questions to focus on are questions like: What am I doing right? What’s working right now? Where am I growing?
Once again, our minds go to work on the questions we’re asking, but now they are seeking out our strengths, our blessings, and the places where there’s good happening.
Instead of drowning us in all that’s wrong, bad, and broken, our minds are feeding us hopeful reminders all that’s good in our lives. It shows us the growth that’s happening, the kintsugi gold that’s taking shape, the healing that’s on the move, the support and strengths that we still have even in the midst of the rubble of life’s brokenness.
This is not about ignoring what hurts, pretending the painful things in our lives don’t exist, avoiding the grief or the fear or the despair that we feel, or even about only thinking happy thoughts.
This is choosing to walk right into the center of all those hard things and still focus on seeking out what supports us and helps us heal.
By asking ourselves what’s going well in the moment, we find the hope, the strength, the support, and the skills we need to face all that hard stuff head on because we are connecting to the parts of ourselves that can carry us through.
What questions do you unconsciously default to when you’re in pain? Are those questions helping you or hindering you as you attempt to heal and grow?
I challenge you to spend some time asking yourself questions about what’s working, what’s going well, what you’re doing right, and where you’re growing. Giving your mind a mission to seek out the good just may give you more support than you can imagine.
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
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