Transform tough times into a life change
By Mark Bowness
Crash. Bang. Reality. As I woke up, a dark misty haze was swirling around my mind. The moment that I recognized that I was in a hospital bed, the events of the past 24 hours came flooding through my mind. I had tried to take my own life. At the age of 26, my marriage had ended, and along with it, the nonprofit organization I had worked so passionately to grow was pulled from under me. At that moment in time, living ceased to be an option.
After a seven-year relationship, my wife had walked out of the door, never to return—and as I sat in our apartment surrounded by everything we had built together, the future looked dark and overwhelming. It was a future that I was certain I was not willing to endure. I turned on my computer and searched under: “most painless and quickest way to kill myself.”
Whether it’s the end of a relationship, the struggle to get a job, or an overwhelming sense of hopelessness and lack of direction, we all experience “dark moments” in life. It is these most difficult times that can turn out to be the most profound. I will always maintain that my attempt at wiping my existence off the face of the planet was the best thing to happen to me; it totally changed my life.
And I learned that there are ways the darkest moments can be the making of a new direction and a new life, if we choose to see them as a doorway.
Forced self-intimacy
When life takes us to the darkest places, absolutely no one around us can understand how we feel or what we are going through. Others may have had a similar experience, but only you can react to your situations the way that you do. During our tough times, we are forced to stare at ourselves eyeball to eyeball, as though we are standing in the mirror and gazing deep into our very soul. As we engage in these moments of forced self-intimacy, we make crucial decisions that redefine who we are, what we want and what we are willing to accept or not accept for our lives. It is the choices that we are forced to make, during this dark period, that lay the foundation of our powerful life change.
Blank canvas opportunity
We absolutely take life way too much for granted. Trying to end my life was my awakening moment to this truth. I truly recognized with my head and my heart that we live life only once and so I made a decision to view my life as a blank canvas, to start again and paint whatever picture I so desired for my future. The result was that I created an eco-island business in Fiji that gained worldwide media attention, was filmed for 18 months and became a TV show that aired in the UK, Australia and America on BBC. My darkest moment became my catalyst to pursuing life in all its fullness, and as a result I embarked upon a crazy adventure.
Benchmarked experience
When we experience a powerful life situation and nothing feels as though it could get any worse, we have then built a foundation of experience on which to construct the rest of our lives. Nothing could be any worse than trying to take your own life, and so I launched a bold and daring business idea, thinking that even if I went bankrupt, it could never be as bad as non-existence. The tough times that we endure give us a place of reference and offer the motivation to continue. When we realize that we have endured X, and X was horrific and terrible, yet we are still standing—then we are filled with the hope that we can get through the smaller battles each day.
A moment of awakening
There are times in our lives when everything piles on top of us, and as a result, we make decisions that are neither healthy nor wise. Friends and loved ones may tell us we are on a destructive path, but we don’t listen, as it is a path that brings us comfort in the moment. I truly believe that there are times in our lives that we are given a place to breakdown. Through this breaking-down experience we undergo a powerful transformation, letting go of all that no longer serves us, arriving at a moment of awakening. Now we rebuild ourselves, truly discovering who we are, what we are about and everything that we stand for—from the ground up. These are the powerful moments of true awakening.
If you are on the precipice as we approach the dawn of this new year, I encourage you to not simply endure your life, but to embrace it. Don’t wallow…grab life by the horns, wrestle it to the ground and overcome your demons. I truly know that you will look back and be able to say that this moment, right now, was the best thing that ever happened to you.
Life coach Mark Bowness has brought together 31 life-change experts who have created a free eBook, Webinar and community that will empower you to radically transform your life in 2014.
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