Not Everything That Hurts Is Meant To Teach You Something

Sometimes the most spiritual thing you can do is stop trying to find a lesson and simply tell the truth.

I've never been completely comfortable with the phrase, "Everything happens for a reason."

I understand why people say it. When something painful happens, we want an explanation. We want to believe there is a purpose hiding somewhere inside the mess.

But I've lived long enough to know that sometimes a painful thing happened because someone made a bad choice.

Sometimes people hurt each other.

Sometimes people disappoint us.

Sometimes relationships change.

Sometimes people leave.

Sometimes we stay too long.

And sometimes life simply hands us something we never asked for.

I don't believe we have to put a pretty spiritual bow on every painful experience in order to heal from it.

In fact, I think doing that too quickly can keep us from healing at all.

Not everything that hurts you is meant to teach you something.

Sometimes it just hurts.

And that's okay to admit.

I've Never Been a Big Fan of Spiritual Bypassing

Maybe that's because I've spent so much of my life looking at human behavior.

As an investigator, I've learned that facts matter.

As a coach, I've learned that people can tell themselves some remarkable stories when the truth is uncomfortable.

And as a person of faith, I've learned that God doesn't need me to pretend something is good when it isn't.

Those three things have taught me something important:

Truth comes before transformation.

You can't heal what you refuse to acknowledge.

You can't take responsibility for your part if you're busy taking responsibility for someone else's.

And you can't make wise decisions about a relationship when you're still trying to convince yourself that what happened didn't really hurt.

Sometimes we need to stop asking, "What was God trying to teach me?"

and start asking,

"What actually happened?"

That's a very different question.

A Friendship Taught Me This in a Very Personal Way

I've had a friendship that lasted more than 35 years.

Thirty-five years is a long time.

You don't accumulate that much history with someone without accumulating memories, inside jokes, shared experiences, disappointments, forgiveness, assumptions, expectations and a whole lot of emotional history.

When a friendship like that becomes strained, it's tempting to look for a simple answer.

Who was right?

Who was wrong?

Who should apologize?

Who should call?

Who should walk away?

But life rarely gives us relationships that neatly divide themselves into the innocent person and the guilty person.

Sometimes both people have a piece of the story.

Sometimes one person has carried more of the relationship than the other.

Sometimes two people remember the same events completely differently.

And sometimes a relationship reaches a point where loving someone isn't enough to make the relationship healthy.

That one has been hard for me.

Not because I don't know how to walk away from people.

I do.

The harder question is knowing when walking away is wisdom and when walking away is simply another way of avoiding a difficult conversation.

That's where discernment matters.

And that's where I don't believe spirituality means sitting around waiting for a sign.

Sometimes you have to look at the behavior.

Someone can say, "Give me a chance."

Those words matter.

But what happens next matters more.

Is there curiosity about your experience?

Is there accountability?

Is there an honest willingness to hear what you have to say?

Is there an attempt to repair what was damaged?

Or are the words simply an attempt to get the discomfort to go away?

I've learned that you don't measure a relationship by what someone says they want.

You watch what they're willing to do.

Healing Doesn't Always Mean Ending Something

This is another place where I think personal growth advice sometimes gets too simplistic.

We're told to "protect your peace."

We're told to "cut toxic people off."

We're told to "choose yourself."

Sometimes that's exactly right.

But sometimes those phrases become permission to avoid anything uncomfortable.

Not every difficult person is toxic.

Not every disagreement is abuse.

Not every broken relationship needs to be buried.

And not every boundary requires a goodbye.

Sometimes the mature thing is to sit across from someone and have the conversation you've both been avoiding.

Sometimes the answer is forgiveness.

Sometimes it's distance.

Sometimes it's rebuilding.

Sometimes it's accepting that the relationship will never be what it once was.

And sometimes it's saying, "I love you, but this relationship cannot continue in the same way."

Those are very different choices.

Discernment is knowing the difference.

You Don't Have to Be Grateful for What Hurt You

This one deserves to be said plainly.

You don't have to be grateful that someone betrayed you.

You don't have to be grateful for being lied to.

You don't have to be grateful for being abandoned.

You don't have to be grateful for losing someone you loved.

You don't have to call your suffering a blessing simply because you eventually grew from it.

I think we sometimes confuse being grateful for what we learned with being grateful for what happened.

They're not the same thing.

I can be grateful that I became wiser without being grateful that someone hurt me.

I can be grateful that I learned boundaries without being grateful that someone crossed them.

I can be grateful that I learned to listen to my intuition without being grateful that someone gave me a reason to doubt them.

That's a distinction worth making.

Because otherwise we start turning pain into something sacred that it never was.

Sometimes the Lesson Is Simply That You Were Right About What You Saw

This is especially important for people who have spent years second-guessing themselves.

Maybe you noticed something was wrong.

Maybe you felt the relationship becoming one-sided.

Maybe you kept explaining away behavior because you had history with the person.

Maybe you told yourself, "Surely they didn't mean it that way."

Maybe you kept giving the benefit of the doubt long after the evidence had stopped supporting it.

Then one day you realize something uncomfortable:

Your intuition wasn't necessarily wrong. You just didn't want to believe what it was telling you.

That doesn't mean every gut feeling is correct.

I've seen enough human behavior to know that fear can masquerade as intuition, too.

That's why discernment requires more than a feeling.

Look at the pattern.

Look at the behavior.

Look at what happens when you tell someone how their actions affected you.

Look at whether their response brings you closer to truth or farther away from it.

Your intuition may whisper.

Behavior usually doesn't.

I Don't Believe God Needs to Hurt Us to Teach Us

This is where my faith comes into the conversation.

I believe God can bring something beautiful out of terrible circumstances.

I don't believe that means God caused the terrible circumstance.

Those are two very different ideas.

I don't believe betrayal was necessary so that I could learn discernment.

I don't believe heartbreak was required so that I could become compassionate.

I don't believe someone else's bad behavior becomes God's lesson plan simply because I eventually grew wiser.

I believe we live in a world where human beings have free will.

People make choices.

Those choices affect other people.

Sometimes those choices cause enormous pain.

And I believe God can meet us right there.

Not necessarily by explaining it.

Not necessarily by removing it.

Sometimes simply by helping us remain truthful while we're walking through it.

There are seasons when faith doesn't give you an explanation.

It gives you enough light for the next step.

I've learned to be okay with that.

So What Do You Do With the Pain?

This is the question I find much more useful than, "What was this supposed to teach me?"

Ask yourself:

What actually happened?

Don't soften it. Don't exaggerate it. Tell yourself the truth.

What part of this belongs to me?

Own your choices. Own your mistakes. Own your words.

But don't pick up somebody else's suitcase and call it your responsibility.

What part doesn't belong to me?

You aren't responsible for another person's choices simply because you loved them.

What do I need to change?

Maybe it's a boundary.

Maybe it's communication.

Maybe it's your expectations.

Maybe it's the amount of access someone has to you.

Maybe it's nothing about you at all.

What is still worth saving?

That's an important question.

We live in a culture that sometimes treats relationships like disposable cups. If something gets uncomfortable, throw it away.

I don't believe that.

Some things are worth repairing.

But repair requires two people.

You cannot rebuild a bridge by yourself and then blame yourself when you still can't cross it.

And finally, ask yourself: What kind of person do I want to be after this?

That's the question that matters most to me.

You Don't Have to Become Hard Because Someone Hurt You

I've watched people get hurt and decide they'll never trust again.

They build walls and call them boundaries.

They withdraw and call it peace.

They stop caring and call it strength.

I understand why.

But I don't think that's healing.

Healing isn't becoming impossible to hurt.

Healing is becoming better at recognizing what deserves access to you.

You can have a soft heart and strong boundaries.

You can forgive without forgetting.

You can love someone without trusting them.

You can understand someone's pain without excusing their behavior.

You can give someone another chance without giving them unlimited chances.

You can walk away without hating them.

And you can stay without surrendering yourself.

Those are grown-up choices.

They don't always make for a neat inspirational quote.

But they're real.

Maybe the Lesson Isn't the Point

I've come to believe that sometimes we're so determined to find the lesson that we miss the actual work.

The work may simply be grieving.

The work may be telling the truth.

The work may be apologizing.

The work may be setting a boundary.

The work may be forgiving.

The work may be admitting that we were wrong.

The work may be deciding that we're not willing to repeat the same pattern again.

And sometimes the work is simply getting up tomorrow and living your life.

You don't have to turn every wound into wisdom immediately.

You don't have to understand everything.

You don't have to know why someone did what they did.

You don't have to know whether a relationship will be restored.

You don't have to know what the next chapter looks like.

You only have to be honest about where you are standing today.

Because here's what I believe:

You don't have to be grateful for the wound to be grateful for the wisdom you eventually gained from healing it.

There is a difference.

A very important one.

Some things that happen to us will teach us something.

Some things will simply break our hearts.

Some things will change us.

Some things will reveal people.

Some things will reveal us to ourselves.

And some things will remain unanswered.

I'm learning to let some questions remain unanswered.

Not because I don't care.

Because I finally understand that an unanswered question doesn't have to become an unfinished life.

Sometimes the most spiritual thing you can do is stop searching for the hidden lesson and tell yourself the truth.

That hurt me.

That wasn't okay.

This part was mine.

That part wasn't.

I loved them.

I still love them.

And I get to decide what happens next.

That, to me, is where healing begins.

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