There are going to be times that try your heart so severely that everything in you wants to quit, everything in you wants to collapse, everything in you wants to go down, everything in you wants to go crazy. You’re in the midst of a storm, and it is what you do when you are alone in that dark place that determines how much you really learn from life. The ultimate measure of a person is not where they stand in moments of comfort and convenience, but where they stand in times of challenge and controversy. When all hell is breaking loose, that’s where we find out what you are really made of. When life throws its punches, when you’re on the ground gasping for air, I need you to remember that it’s not about how hard you hit; it’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward, how much you can take and keep moving forward.
You’re not a victim, stop acting like one. You’re a warrior; you shape your own destiny in the furnace of your struggles. In the heat of your pain, you are being forged into a beast; you become unstoppable by being broken over and over and over by life. You get to the point where you’ve been hurt so much that you know what the worst pain is like, and you can handle it every single time. Don’t see your pain as a barrier, see it as a building block. Every moment of suffering, every time you break down, it is adding to your strength, adding to your resilience. The more you go through, the more you grow through. It is preparing you for great battles, which lead to greater victories.
An oak tree becomes strong under pressure, under the forces of nature, and you become stronger under the pressures of life. The things that break you are the very things that make you unbreakable. They are the fire that tempers your spirit, the hammer that shapes your resolve. In this process of being broken and rebuilt, you’ll find a version of yourself that you never knew existed, a version of you that is not just surviving, but that’s thriving. A version of you that doesn’t run from challenges like most people do, but instead steps toward them and says, ‘Bring it on.’
That version of you knows that every setback is a setup for a comeback. We all feel broken inside at times; that’s a part of being a human being. But the difference is, do you give up, or do you get up? Do you give into the pain and the hardship, or do you decide, ‘I will not allow this’? You need to decide right now that ‘I am bigger than this. I can get through this. I’m coming back from this, and I will be better because of it.’
When you feel broken inside, when the pain seems too much to bear, you got to remind yourself that this might be a page in your life, this might be a chapter in your life, but it is not the whole book. This is not your whole story. Every battle, every scar is preparing you for something bigger, something greater. You’re not defined by what breaks you; you’re defined by how you rebuild yourself. So stand tall, even if you’re standing on broken pieces, and tell yourself that no matter how hard things are or how hard things get, I will never give up. I’m not done yet. I’ll come back stronger.
Whatever you do, don’t lose your head. Pull your feelings out of it, pull your insecurities out of it, your vulnerabilities, and stand on what you know. Yes, the road’s been bumpy. Yes, the road’s been tough. Yes, the road’s been difficult. Yes, you’ve shed some tears, and yes, you’ve endured some pain, but it is the bumpy road to better. You can’t get to better without bumpy. You can’t get to better without pain. You can’t get to better without tears. There is no pill you can take; there is no simple solution. It is the bumpiness of the road that leads you to better.
Whatever you’re going through right now, it’s happening on purpose. It is happening in order to forge you into the person that you were created to be. But if you quit, if you let the darkness, you let the pain, you let the agony win, you will never get to be that person. The people who make it through the hardest times in life and come out better because of it are the people who are willing to look at the problems and issues in front of them, assess the situation, take responsibility for fixing it, and come up with solutions to solve them.
Your pain is not the end; it’s the beginning of a new you. A you that’s tougher, wiser, and unstoppable. So when you’re broken, remember it’s just the universe saying it’s time to build the best version of you.
Embrace it, fight through it, and emerge victorious because what doesn’t kill you truly does make you stronger.