4 Truths to Keep in Mind When Everything is Going Wrong

Ever have those days when you are sure “everything is going wrong.”  The times when you say to yourself “My life is a mess.”  Or, times when you answer the question “How are you doing? with “not so good.”  Times when you are struggling and feel and can’t even seem to see anything other than “everything is going wrong.”

It doesn’t matter the reason; everything is going wrong.  When everything is going wrong – the joy of life seems to evaporate, you lose hope and your faith is tested.  You may even feel abandoned by God or at least out in some kind of God punishing time-out or something. 

I invite you to consider the following four truths when you are in the space of “everything is going wrong!”  Not only do I invite you to consider them, I invite you to live into them and believe them.  Let them be part of your story, the narrative of how you are viewing your life.

#1 – Remember that you were never told it would be easy.

Now that seems like an awful thing to remember and you may be wondering how that is helpful at all.  Some of these truths may challenge you.  Hang in there. 

All throughout history Christ’s disciples and followers, have encountered hard times…times when everything seemed to be going wrong.

Hard times have always been part of the human condition…clear back when Adam and Eve partook of the fruit and were driven out of the Garden, to the 12 Apostles who walked with Jesus during his earthly ministry to the life of Lehi and his family found in the Book of Mormon another testament of Jesus Christ and all the other humans throughout history who choose Jesus and Heavenly Father…there has been the hard.

And, those who don’t choose Them also have the hard of life.

Let’s think about this a moment.  Why would God simply not make it all easy?  Why do we need the hard?  What is the point of hard?  What is the point of this earthly life if easy was supposed to be the way of it?

I submit that the hard is because They love you. They want you to become someone more, someone stretched and molded into a better version of yourself, someone who has evolved.  A version that is more and more like They are.  Remember, the Sermon on the Mount after Jesus speaks the Beatitudes, teaches past the law of Moses he commands us to “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” 

Whoa!  Think about it.  All that we are commanded to do that Jesus laid out in just this part of this one sermon includes striving for perfection.  Becoming perfect.    

And, we know, becoming perfect is hard.  Thus, the hard.  The point of human life is not for us to have it easy, if that were the case why even create a world for us to come down too, why leave Heaven, and why even leave the Garden?  The hard is necessary for God’s work in us to take place.  Hard is part of life.  Hard is a reality. 

I love how Byron Katie says it.  “When we argue with reality, we lose the argument 100% of the time.” 

Think about that.  When you argue with reality, human life is sometimes hard, you are denying what is, what already exists.  That arguing is a complete waste of your time and brain power. 

Consider remembering, you were never told it would be easy and this is actually the way it was designed to be.

#2 – Remember that both the hard and the easy

allows you to have and use agency.

Ok so the reality is we have hard and we have easy.  Or shall we say “easier”.  Because there is both, you get to choose.  And spoiler alert, even if it seems that everything is going wrong and you are 100% in the hard, you still get to choose.  Your agency is still there and active. 

You get to choose using your pre-frontal cortex, the beautiful part of your brain that thinks about your future.  The part that is a problem solver.  The part that is a planner, is creative, is curious to choose what you will think, feel and do even in the hard. 

Just because it is hard, doesn’t mean you don’t have agency.  You still do. 

Now sometimes it might feel so heavy that your fight, flight or freeze instincts are crowding out your pre-frontal cortex.  But that doesn’t mean that you have to succumb to those three choices – fight, flight or freeze.  You can still access your pre-frontal by simply doing some of the things you probably already know to do.  Take a moment to step away, figuratively or literally from the hard.  Pause and pray.  Talk it out with someone who will simply listen to you and offer counsel if you want it.  Take a walk outside.  Put your feet on the earth – in the grass, on the beach, even in the snow.  Listen to some music. 

The point is – remember that you have more choices than to fight, flee or freeze.  You can pause.

There is more than one way to walk through the hard.  Ask your brain, something like “given my current situation and limitations, what can I do?”  Be curious and ask your brain to think up at least 10 options of what you can do.

Consider that because you have the hard and the easier you get to choose, you still have agency.  You can pause and tap back into your pre-frontal cortex and generate more choices.

#3 – Remember not to beat yourself up.  Yes, take responsibility for your choices but only to learn, grow and change.

If you are anything like me, one of the places you brain goes to when everything is going wrong is to think that I am somehow to blame, that I have done something wrong, or that I deserve it. 

Usually, the hard arrives because of one of two humans…you and/or another human.  More often than not it is due to both.  You did or said something that led you to where you are.  And/or another human said or did something that impacted where you are now. 

Either way, here you are where you are now.  As you look behind you, which is totally normal, your brain wants to shame yourself or blame the other person, STOP! 

Please don’t play the blame and shame game.  Neither one is useful.  Neither one is helpful.  Blaming and shaming only shuts your brain down from seeing all the options you have.  Your brain thinks smaller, more limited, it is not wide and expansive enough to step into problem solving, creative thinking and the curiosity to brainstorm the 10 or more things you can do to move through the hard in a way that evolves you into an even better version of yourself. 

Consider not beating yourself up.  Consider not playing the blame and shame game.  Instead, consider stepping into compassion and grace for yourself and the other humans.

#4 – Remember that the hard and the easy of life is God’s Plan. 

It means God loves you.

The reality that life is not one dimensional – all easy or all hard – is the way it was designed to be.  The truth of it is we are God’s work and his glory.  We are His. 

We often hear that as humans, part of our human and divine nature is that we were designed for connection.  I recently heard someone say that God wants connection too.  That he made us, put us here on earth to give us the experience of hard and easy so that we could evolve and become, choosing Him, following Him and ultimately, because of our choosing and following return to live with him.  We would then, because of our own experiences, better understand Him, love Him and glorify Him.  We would then be more fully connected to Him.  And that is what He wants…to be connected to us and us to Him.

I love thinking about it that way.

So, consider that God loves you and he has designed a plan that will help you grow closer to your divine identify and potential. 

Conclusion

Perhaps you have struggled, cried, been angry, sad and depressed because you are right now in the thick of everything is going wrong.  That is ok.

The power you have in your story is that you can rise up from the ashes of your hard and choose not to be a victim but rather put your brain to work coming up with all the ideas of what you can do, even given your current situation and limitations.

Choice is still there.  Even in the hard.

God is still there.  Even in the hard.

God loves you.  Even in the hard.