How Your Struggles Can Be Your Greatest Strengths: Lessons in Resilience and Perseverance

 How Your Struggles Can Be Your Greatest Strengths: Lessons in Resilience and Perseverance

Hello. Hello. Welcome everyone. It is again Tuesday, which means another episode of In The Rising Podcast will be released. My name is Bettina and I'm your host, and this is the platform that we talk about living your true life, living your true self so that you can live an awesome. Fantastic, grateful, joyful life without the fear of guilt and regret.

That's what we talk about every week and a different subject within that. And today the episode is called Revealing Radiance, and I wanted to talk about basically the light that is within all of us, but for. Some of us, it seems maybe that that inner light, which can be your inner joy or can be your intuition or your inspiration, sometimes that can feel not really a light as much as the, the dimmer's been put on that the, it's very dim, very dim, and a lot of us live our entire life.

Dimmed out until we are at the end. And there is a reason why the number one reported regret of those who are dying is that they did not live a life they wanted to live. And that's not when you have the the choice and the opportunity to make a difference. You have it much earlier. Sometimes six months, sometimes a year.

And there's even that song, which I unfortunately do not know the name of the artist, but you know, he, it's a man, he talks about, I hope you get the chance to live like you were dying, because then things were so much clearer. And since we're all so busy and sometimes we don't even have a chance to take a breath because of everything happening, whether it's in our life directly or indirectly.

I wanted to talk a little bit about that today, if I may, if I may. So a lot of us have strongholds and. We sometimes associate a stronghold with a fortress. There are all these different layers to a fortress or the old time castles. I've been watching a lot of those shows lately and you know, there are just watch towers and little openings where you can look out, but it's definitely hard for the arrows on the outside to, to actually breach those walls.

It's hard to breach the walls to come in because it's been fortified. Some of us have actually fortified our hearts and we have also fortified our minds we're we don't even talk about things that may happen because we just know it's never gonna turn out. We are not even, oh, that's just wishful thinking.

But where does all of this come about? And I do believe a lot of us, and especially women, are kind of conditioned. We're conditioned to believe certain things, and sometimes we're conditioned that in our own church that there, especially in the past, but still in the present, is still a definitive line that a woman is below a man.

A woman should not rule the housework, hold that is the man's job, and whatever the man decides, you know, and definitely quote. Mini biblical versus in that area, although I do know what they are. I also believe that both were created to rule together. Now together does not happen if there's always just the one leader all the time.

It is does require both, and so we can be conditioned to believe that we may not have that strength. Or feel that we have to go into our quote unquote masculine energy to have that we're conditioned to not be a disgrace to anyone, and that especially is with the family. Don't be a disgrace and be a loose girl.

Don't be a disgrace and not get married at a certain time. Don't be a disgrace by not providing those grandchildren. Those grandbabies are so important. Don't be a disgrace and not know how to cook. Don't be a disgrace and not keep a clean house, and don't be a disgrace by not always looking in public like you have it together.

There's a huge thing too, that as a woman I can speak to, that there is an undertone out there that you have till about 23, 24 to really kind of get it together. And get married because once you're outta college, you know, most of your opportunities are out of the window. And there's a fear. What's wrong with me?

What? What I have not done right? What is it because I'm not pretty enough? Or is it because I'm not doing this? And then what about if you are married and a certain point in life, people will look at you and say, well, where are your children? And you have to almost come with an armor to defend yourself and to defend your marriage or partnership that you have.

Dec decided to not have children. There still is this push. This is an expectation, and not just of your family, but also in society. And not only that, but now more than ever. The push is not that you are just in this relationship with children, but you also have to be educated. It is still important for you to get that education.

And of course, education is not free. And so that comes with debt often and for debt comes, you know, having to work money, jobs, and if you're working one or more jobs, well, you're not staying home and you're not doing what's absolutely best for the kids. Other people are raising your children and then heaven forbid you get sick because most positions nowadays have so many call-ins or sick days you're allowed to have before you are written up or terminated.

So you're only allowed to be so sick and anyone who's had a young child knows the pain of having to figure out if they are sick enough to call in. Those are decisions that are having to be made. And so when we are now women that are in our thirties and forties and fifties and so on, and we're not married, or we're not as educated as we're supposed to be, or we don't have the position that we are supposed to have by now.

That buying now can those, all these strongholds and, and expectations from family, society, ourselves, all of these can dim, dim our light. So it does take a point in time when we just stop and think about how are we being influenced? Are we being correctly influenced and are we correctly influencing others?

You know, we're not living in islands. Some of us do a few. But then you're probably not listening to this podcast, but for the majority of us, we have interactions with people that people observe. And if we've been incorrectly influenced, are we taking those strongholds, those fortresses, and kind of putting them on the next generation or those people around us?

How can we change this? So I looked up a few quotes about light. And I found one very fitting for now from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. And it says, darkness cannot drive out. Darkness. Only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate. Only love can do that. So whatever our strongholds, we don't have to look at them with our own weapons.

We don't have to sit at that table and say, well, this was my bad experience and this was what happened, and this is who did it. But we have to look at that with a little bit of gentleness and realize that experience was there, but our reaction going forward is here in our, our little seat, and that we can look at that with love.

And that's where a lot of the self-love and self-care stems from. That being angry with yourself and self-hatred and self-loathing. That's where a lot of the pain that we try to cover up comes from with our different techniques of drug abuse. So what we can evaluate is that we know that we have to start with that love of our own light first.

And so this other quote. Says this, we can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark. But the real tragedy is when men are afraid of the light. Now, this was written by Play-Doh again. That's when you know Play-Doh ancient Greek times. And of course, women are not in that, but it is afraid of men and women.

It's a, it's a tragedy when we are not living in our light today. Now we're no longer children running from darkness. But maybe because we've lived in such darkness and run from it for so long, we're not sure how to be in that light. We're, you know, a lot of people don't like to be in the spotlight or center stage, and I get that, but what about being center stage of your own life?

That's a tragedy to not be there, to not find that comfort zone and realize you are worth in that place. And the last quote that I really, really liked, Is this, look at how a single candle can both defy and define the darkness. And that's from Anne Frank, who was the girl with the little diary that they found in World War ii.

She spent many years hiding in an attic and unfortunately lost her life in a concentration camp. But her diary and her words, And her view, her light did not dim even in that situation. And because of that, even through her death, but because of the journal she wrote, she still is able to transcend years and years and decades and minds because she was choosing to be a light in whatever ability she had cuz she certainly couldn't be out and about, but just that journal.

Really showed that. So what I ask you and what I've asked myself is to own it. You know, we have to own the good and own the bad, but own your light. Own that you are here for a reason and own that. Yes, there are still. Strongholds that hold so many of us, and it doesn't matter if it's a family stronghold, financial stronghold, emotional stronghold, not being able to be in touch with your emotions, not being willing to, because maybe something comes up that you've wanted hidden for so long, but own your light.

And with owning your light, it helps identify what your personal values are, the principles and standards and qualities that you find important, not what someone else does, not even what your spouse does, or what your kids do, or your mom or your dad, but what you really find important,

you know, it is. Very, very easy to say a lot of this stuff, but so many times we get in nature visible representations of what it's like to be beautiful despite some strongholds. That's where our Grand Canyon comes from, you know, water eroded. It was a force. But it turned into a beautiful sculpture. We would not be going out to that part of the western part of the USA to look at a big flat desert.

We, we, we would just, would, I live in a flat desert and I, I mean, I appreciate it, but I don't see droves of people coming out here to look at that. What we marvel at is what happened because of those circumstances and the beauty that came out of it. And the way the sun will shine and hit some of the rocks and just glisten.

And we appreciate it. Not because it had an easy time, not because erosion didn't happen, but because it did. And so for each one of us to radiate in our own light is not to deny the dark moments of our life or the dark seasons or dark years. Heck, for some of us it's been dark decades. But to recognize that the light though got, though it got dim, it never blew out.

That candle was always on. So I thank you again for listening today. I appreciate your time because you know what, we only have so much time and so. Thank you very much. If this topic or similar topics are avenges to you, go ahead and send me a message. The details are below and I will see you guys next Tuesday and let's keep building one another up!