You defend your love for life like you would if the enemy jumped the moat and was storming the castle.

What do you do if you just experienced a life-changing event?

The first thing you need to do is buckle up because it is going to hurt like hell.

You may not want to hear it, but the sad truth is that the hurt will never subside.

It will never go away.

It will always hurt no matter what anyone says to you or how much time passes.

And it will hurt badly.

Forever.

That is the honest truth.

And the sooner you understand this, the better prepared you will be to beat it.

Every “I’m sorry” you hear people say to you will burn up inside you faster than a bead of cold water dropped on a hot skillet.

Every well-intended “I know how it feels” you hear will aggravate you.

Get used to it.

It will never hurt less.

For that is a tribute to how much you care.

So what do you do?

The second thing you need to do is to cap it.

Cap the hurt to 49% and elevate everything good in your life to fill the remaining 51%.

Your 51%.

Put borders around the 51%.

Impenetrable borders.

Create a space where the hurt can never enter.

I call it the “Andy Dufresne space”.

Remember the scene where Andy locked himself in the warden’s office while playing music over the loudspeaker to all the inmates.

No matter what was happening outside the office, Andy’s soul was impenetrable for a time being.

That is the key, to have a portion of you to be impenetrable for some time that you control.

By doing so, you never allow the event to be able to control you.

And it will attempt to.

Often.

Like, every day.

When the hurt attacks attempting to capture more than its fair share of 49%, you defend your 51% love of life like you would if the enemy jumped the moat and stormed the castle.

You fight to the death to defend the 51%.

Then you fill the 51% with MORE.

You never stop dreaming.

For it is dreams that make you alive.

I understand that your dream is no longer possible to obtain.

But you keep your dream alive by parlaying it into another dream.

A bigger dream.

You fill the 51% with your belief system.

Recommit to your beliefs even after the injustice.

Make the injustice cringe when it looks at you, when it watches you.

Act like “The Who’s” in Whoville when the Grinch stole their presents on Christmas Eve.

Sing aloud as they did – Fahoo Fores, Dahoo Dores.

Make the Grinch scratch his chin in bewilderment.

For when you do – when you become unbreakable,

You win.

The third thing you need to do is to replace it.

Don’t allow yourself to be known by this event.

Set out to do something greater.

Exchange events in people’s memories for which you will be known.

It is sad but a fact of life that there will be things that happen to you that can never be justified by the saying, “Everything happens for a reason.“

No reason will ever seem equitable to what you lost.

It just won’t.

Don’t let it make you callous, though.

What the injustice wants to do is to beat you every day of your life.

Don’t let it.

You are a fighter.

You are a winner.

It may have beaten you on one given day.

That is okay.

You win when you use this event to make you better.

No, the pain from the incident will never go away.

But you win if you use it to improve the remaining 51% of your life.

51% to 49%.

Just look to improve your position each day.

Make the Grinch scratch his chin in disbelief.

Fahoo Fores, Dahoo Dores.

________

This is a chapter Excerpt from “In the Eye of the Storm”

Which can be purchased here.