Healing a Painful Past – 3 Steps to Overcoming
Life's Disappointments
By Karen Wheeler Hall

Every dark cloud has a silver lining. It may sound corny,
but it's true. When disappointment rears its ugly head,
stay positive and expect things to work out to your
advantage. Actively look for the silver lining, or you
just might miss it.

In addition, use this silver lining concept to heal old
wounds. Look back on painful episodes from the past and
analyze them. Systematically look for anything positive
that came out of those situations.

3 Tips for Finding the Good in a Bad Event:
In analyzing bad events from the past, consider these
criteria:
1) Did your physical circumstances change as a result of
the bad event, taking you out of harm's way or bringing
you into a favorable situation you would have missed
otherwise? (example: you are very upset at missing your
plane, only to find out later that the plane crashed)

2) Did the bad event prompt you to change – to grow as a
person, to give up a bad habit, etc.? (example: the death
of someone close to you prompts you to reexamine your
priorities in life)

3) Did the bad event result in a benefit for someone else?
(example: following his diagnosis of testicular cancer,
Lance Armstrong created a foundation dedicated to helping
people with cancer).

3 Steps to Finding the Silver Lining:
1) Write down something bad that happened in your life.

2) Think deeply about the bad event. Write down all the
good things (no matter how small) that happened as a result
of that incident. Remember to look at the tips listed above
if you get stuck. Can't come up with even one good outcome?
Maybe the good outcome has not occurred yet, or maybe it did
happen but you were unaware of it (such as getting a flat
tire, which made you miss being involved in a traffic
accident).

3) Repeat Steps 1-2 for other bad events in your life.

Practice this silver lining exercise to help you see that
something good always comes from every so-called "bad"
event in your life. You may not understand it yet, you may
find it impossible to see the good, but it is there. Just
open yourself up and be receptive in order to understand.

Unfortunately, life doesn't come with a crystal ball to show
us the ultimate outcome of painful situations. So let the
dust settle on your troubling times, then look back with
your best 20/20 hindsight. At long last, you just may see
the purpose of it all. Stay positive in every situation,
and you will eventually see that all events work for your
highest good.

Karen Wheeler Hall is the author of Illumination – Inspiring
Stories about Finding the Silver Lining, available from
http://www.KarenWheelerHall.com, on-line bookstores, and
through major bookstores nationwide. Read a sample
story from the book at http://www.KarenWheelerHall.com.

(c) Karen Wheeler Hall – All Rights Reserved