Life's Greatest Lessons: Turning Challenges Into Wisdom

We all face challenges in life, moments that test our strength and push us to our limits. But what if these very struggles, these seemingly insurmountable obstacles, are our greatest teachers, guiding us toward deeper understanding and unlocking our true potential?

Transcript

Welcome to the Happiness Podcast.

I'm Dr.

Robert Puff.

There's a lot of wonderful things about the work I do as a clinical psychologist,

But perhaps the most rewarding and enjoyable is when people come in in crisis because something really bad has happened in their life,

And I get to help them not only get better,

But actually learn from the bad experiences and grow from them.

That is part of my job that I just love.

One of my favorite stories that I've ever known of someone turning tragedy into something beautiful is the life of St.

Francis of Assisi's.

He had gone to war fighting to protect people from his city,

And he was captured during the war and kept as a prisoner.

When he was finally released,

He was traumatized,

And then through some very beautiful experiences,

He learned that his mission in life wasn't to hurt people,

But to help people.

Well,

His father was a very successful merchant in the city of Assisi's,

And he didn't want his son helping the poor.

He wanted his son helping him in his business.

Well,

His son,

St.

Francis,

Had given away quite a bit of his father's material to the poor,

And he was very upset at him,

So he took him before the magistrate and wanted him to be reprimanded.

But what St.

Francis did is he said,

I renounce everything you've given me,

Father,

And he literally took off all his clothes and walked away.

And from going through war,

Seeing his friends die,

Coming back,

Losing everything that he had,

Even the clothes that he was wearing,

He went from that place and changed our world.

As we navigate life,

One of the things that is very hard for us to deal with,

It's tragedy.

It's things that happen in our lives that we don't want to happen.

Sometimes these things are completely out of our control,

Meaning they come out of nowhere.

My sister,

When she had a boy at home that was six years old and a second son that was two years old,

Her husband came home from work one day and had a very bad headache.

Well,

He went to have it checked out and discovered he had brain cancer.

And two years later,

He died.

There is nothing they did to cause this.

There is nothing they could have done to prevent this.

And yet life gave them very hard challenges.

But sometimes we do things that do add to our own discomfort in life,

That make things that go poorly partially our fault.

The sad and tragic one here is people that drink and drive.

I've read studies where when a person finally gets into an accident or gets a DUI,

On average they've driven 80 times prior to that under the influence of alcohol until the tragic event occurred.

Now they have to deal with the choices that they made and all the consequences that can come with drinking and driving.

But if they hadn't drinking and drove,

They wouldn't be in that situation right now.

So when it comes to life challenges,

Sometimes they come out of nowhere and we had nothing to do with them.

And other times they're a culmination of choices that we made that led us to this point in life.

Not completely adding to the dire consequences that we're facing right now,

But sometimes partially.

So when it comes to life,

Wanting to circumvent things that happened to us that we don't want to have happen,

We can influence the choices that add to poor mistakes in our life.

But the events in our life that don't have anything to do with us and we cannot influence,

And yet they still come,

Those are negative events that we also have to face,

Even though we had nothing to do to make them happen.

So when they come,

We have two choices,

Which will be in our control.

Under one category,

Which expresses itself in so many different ways,

We can fight,

Hate,

Repress,

Deny,

Ignore,

Numb,

So many different ways we can basically not deal with these life challenges and hate them and just feel that life is bad and find our best ways to numb them in the long run and not learn anything from them.

Or we can see them as challenges that help us grow and learn and become wiser as a human being.

And which path we choose is really completely up to us.

But the beautiful thing is we can choose the path of growth where we learn and evolve and become a better human being and a wiser person overall.

I see this all the time in my work.

People go through such hard times and yet they grow from them.

They learn,

They get better.

And many times if the tragedy hadn't come,

They wouldn't have grown.

They wouldn't have gotten better.

So instead of seeing the challenges as awful,

As unfair,

As unjust,

As just unconscionable,

We can instead see them as lessons.

And they're lessons because life never said,

I'm gonna be fair to you.

Life is just life.

And sometimes we contribute to the tragedies we're going through,

But often we don't at all.

They're coming out of nowhere.

But in either case,

They're lessons.

There's things that we need to learn from.

The next thing I'm gonna share may make you upset at me,

But I ask you to listen to the end and see if you can see perhaps some wisdom in what I'm saying.

A lot of the life challenges that we face aren't coming from life.

They're coming from our expectations of what life is supposed to bring to us.

My father,

When he got his first job,

It was the only job he had until I was 14 years old.

He worked his way up in the company and did quite well.

But one day he lost that job.

And it literally took him eight years to come out of the depression from losing that job.

It was very hard for him.

And yet other people around the world,

Some of them don't have jobs.

They're living day by day,

Or they get different jobs throughout their lives.

And they're totally fine with that.

They're happy.

They're content.

And yet my father had the expectation that he would have one job,

Keep it till he retired,

And retire happily ever after.

It was his expectation that caused him to suffer,

Not life.

This is how life can be our teacher.

We say,

Okay,

I'm going through this really hard time right now that I don't like.

But what part of me is contributing to my discontent over what's happening?

What am I hanging on to that is causing me to suffer right now?

And how can I let that go?

Because I don't want to suffer.

For example,

Let's say you finally meet the love of your life,

And you so badly want to spend the rest of your life with them.

And then along the way,

Something happens and things change.

And that isn't what happens.

And they're asking for a divorce.

Of course,

Divorce is sad,

But it can be part of life.

Death,

Divorce,

Separation,

Changes are all part of life.

When we cling tightly to something and say that's not supposed to happen,

And then it happens,

We suffer.

And often,

When we don't cling so tightly,

We actually hang on to things better.

Because then we're malleable,

We're changeable.

We can adapt to new situations.

So if we have children,

And our spouse isn't quite as available as they used to be,

And we don't get to spend quite as much time with them because they're doing other things to take care of the family,

We're okay with that.

We realize that will change.

We can still love them and appreciate the moments that we do have,

Even though it's different than it used to be.

So instead of getting angry at them and upset at them,

We are kinder and gentler.

It doesn't guarantee that the marriage or the relationship will last,

But it does increase the odds.

And far more importantly,

What it does is,

It allows us to relax.

So when things do go down a different path than we were hoping,

We're okay.

And so the lessons that life brings us are teachers.

When we're upset at something,

Instead of saying,

This is so unfair,

Why is this happening?

Different questions that we can ask that I think you'll find so helpful are,

What can I learn from this?

How can I grow from this?

What am I hanging on to that is causing me to suffer right now?

Because other people go through what I'm going through right now,

And they're okay.

And I think if we're truly honest,

Out of the 8 billion people on the planet,

If someone or lots of people are going through what we're going through right now,

Some of them,

We just have to agree,

Aren't suffering,

They're totally okay with something we're very upset with right now.

And so if that is a possibility,

Let's strive for that.

And I wanna conclude with really the premise of today's talk,

Is that life,

When it's challenging,

Has something to teach us.

It is our mentor.

And if we see it that way,

Not as bad things happening to us,

Not as unfair things happening to us,

But instead as things we need to learn from and grow from and change within ourselves so that we can now adapt to this new situation.

And more importantly,

We can thrive in these changes that initially we don't want.

To be truthful,

This is a hard path because it's just easier to hate,

To reject,

To numb.

There's so many other options we have than to grow and to learn and to become wise.

They are easier,

But they don't solve anything in a year from now,

Five years from now,

The wounds that we're going through,

We're gonna still need to numb because they won't heal,

They won't get better until we face them,

Learn from them and grow from them.

So when we are faced with challenges,

Which we are all going to be sooner or later,

If we can shift our perspective to one of life,

You have lessons you're teaching me right now.

I want to learn from them and grow.

Then we'll find that we will because anything life throws us,

We can overcome.

We can see as something that life is teaching us because life,

The universe,

I believe God really loves us and wants us to grow and learn.

But we have to be open,

We have to be malleable,

We have to be willing to look into our hearts deeply and saying,

How am I contributing to my suffering right now?

And how do I change it?

Because there are so many things in life that we cannot control.

But the one thing we can control is our response.

And if we see life as our teacher,

Instead of as our punisher,

Then we'll say,

Thank you for this lesson.

I am gonna learn,

I am gonna grow and I'm gonna turn these challenges into wisdom.

Thank you for joining me on the Happiness Podcast.

Until next time,

Accept what is,

Love what is.

Reviews

Excellent. Thank you. I’m clinging to a vision of what my husband’s and my life would be like. Health issues have gotten in the way. I need to focus on what we do have, can do. And let go of previous visions.

Dr Puff is amazing.

Super. As always 🙏

Thank you for this talk. My son is currently battling substance abuse addiction. He drinks to deal with underlying anxiety. What I have learned from our family’s struggle with this is how prevalent substance abuse is in the US, and how different my son’s generation is (he’s 22) compared to how I and my peers were at that same age. We were hopeful, but sadly this generation expresses hopelessness. I can only support my son, I can’t cure him. That’s tough for a parent. This was certainly not my expectation but it is my reality.

Interesting teachings— and I do think rigid expectations can truly get in the way of our happiness— but what about our expectations that humans be good to each other? And so when we see injustice, some rise up peaceably to try to change things and may be hurt or arrested… but that expectation comes from a love of Justice. I can’t think that so many of the Hard things that are happening right now politically that will hurt many people are what is meant to happen and I need to accept them, but maybe to accept that I can only do what I can do… thank you for these considerations🙏🏼❤️

Thank you for this wonderful talk🙏

Really helpful. Many thanks Robert 🙏❤️💫

Thank you!

Truth! Thank you for your teachings.

Thank you 🙏

I loved this talk. There was so much wisdom in there, which I hope I can carry forward with me. Thank you Dr Puff. 🙏🏻🌺🐦🌈🌞🕊️🐬🌟

Thank you so much. Very uplifting and helpful.