Particularly during difficult periods, our heroes can serve as our companions, illuminating the paths before us. Reflecting on their journeys allows us to connect with the heroes within ourselves. Suffering puts you on the path of the hero and your success along the way will be determined by the choices you make. Suggestions:
- Sit quietly and reflect on your heroes
- Study to learn more about your heroes
When you are going through a difficult time, write a story about your difficulty, exploring how your hero might deal with the same crisis or problem
Keep a Sense of Humor
Humor and laughter are powerful strategies for dealing with life’s worst situations, capable of reducing stress, boosting the immune system, and easing suffering. Even in the midst of terrible loss and pain, humor has its own healing place. Suggestions:
- Don't ever be afraid to step back from your suffering and laugh
- Share your laughter with others; let yourself relax and find the humor that surrounds you
Express Your Feelings
The pain of suffering, if left unexpressed, incubates over years, decades, even lifetimes, and festers into a growing inner wound that will not heal. Talk about your feelings, haul them into the arena of your awareness. Suffering, especially, demands its expression. Suggestions:
- Talk about your suffering with a friend or therapist
- Express your suffering through art or ritual
- Listen to others when they need an ear
Silence, Prayer, and Meditation
Silence and the attention to our inner space allow us to create a psychological and spiritual environment in which prayer and meditation naturally arise; taken together, they bring mindfulness, concentration, self-reflection, and a deeply felt connection to God and the universe. These moments when you are most completely within will be your strongest with that which appears to be without and beyond your rational comprehension. These moments, too, will put your pain and suffering in a new perspective, and you will become stronger for it. Suggestions:
- Set aside time each day to meditate or pray
- Read, practice, and learn about the many types of meditation and prayer
- Discover the joys of prayer and meditation with others through a local place of worship
- Learn to love silence
- Ask your friends and family to keep you in their prayers
Come to Your Life like a Warrior
Throughout time, all cultures have sought the utopia of an enlightened society in which everyone lives up to his or her fullest potential it is the way of the warrior. The warrior exists within all of us as a natural, archetypal element in the human psyche. During difficult times, four defining characteristics stand out as especially important: Awareness, Bravery, Compassion, and Discipline the "ABCs" of living as a warrior. When we’re in pain, it’s easy to forget that there’s a warrior inside us who is up to the task that confronts us. By looking inside courageously, you will find strength and resources you never imagined. Suggestions:
- Gently but honestly look at yourself and your life in relation to the four warrior characteristics. Where are you strong? Where do you need work?
- Work out a specific plan to keep yourself physically, psychologically, and spiritually strong
- Every morning upon rising ask yourself this one question: "What do I need to do today to take greater responsibility for my life and live with the passionate vitality of a warrior?"
