Counting Your Burdens as Blessings (guest post).

by

Burdens.

We’ve all got them.

Maybe it’s money.

Maybe it’s a health issue.

Maybe it’s a toxic relationship.

Whatever it is, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the negatives plaguing your life when surrounded by all the happiness and abundance and positivity you can see in other people’s lives on social media.

This is my classic happy pose.

 

Everyone wants to be happy, and seems to be in an endless pursuit of finding happiness.

But I don’t believe happiness is a thing to be found and then maintained.

Happiness is a feeling on a spectrum of feelings.

All those feelings make up the human existence. If everyone was always happy, you wouldn’t be happy, you would just be.

Happiness is the counterpoint to sadness. Without a counterpoint there is neutrality.

I consider myself a very happy person, but I also believe my happiness stems from a lot of the hardships I have experienced in my life.

This was taken on Christmas Eve, the night before my mom died.

 Two of my biggest burdens in life are the loss of my mother when I was two months old, and anxiety.

My Mom died unexpectedly (from a suspected brain aneurysm) when she was 24 years old.

It was Christmas morning and my dad was suddenly a single parent with two small girls to raise. We had little money and life was hard.

When the car broke he couldn’t afford to fix it, so we walked. When it was time to go back-to-school shopping we hit up Salvation Army and Goodwill.

As tough as our financial situation was, I was a kid and didn’t really know any different.

The hard part for me was not having a mom to answer my questions and teach me how to do things most little girls learn from their mother.

I looked like a tomboy with unkempt hair and rumpled clothes for most of my childhood because my dad was concerned about keeping us fed and sheltered, not looking pretty.

I cried when I got my period.

I get sad thinking about having a baby someday and not having a mom to share that experience with.

It was the three of us growing up.

 

Anxiety runs in my dad’s side of the family.

Most of my relatives have battled it in some way, shape or form.

The gene didn’t skip me.

The nagging worries I dealt with as a child blossomed into full blown panic as an adult.

Probably due to my mom’s unexpected early death, I developed an irrational fear of dying young.

An unexplained cough would have me Google-ing lung cancer and mesothelioma. My moles had to be cancerous. The sore spot on my calf had to be a blot clot.

I thought about death all.the.time.

It got to the point that my worries consumed my life and I just couldn’t take it anymore. I felt like all the positives in my life were being drowned out by the negatives.

Thankfully, through therapy and medication, I was able to get my anxiety under control.

My worries don’t consume my life anymore, but they are still a part of me. I still think about death more than a normal person probably does.

I still don’t have my mom here with me. But that isn’t a bad thing.

Losing my mom made me prioritize family above all else.

I want a lot of things out of life, both meaningful and superficial.

I want to travel, I want a fabulous body, I want a powerhouse career, I want to publish a book, I want a big, beautiful house but at the end of the day if I have a loving family, it’s all that I need.

The reason I am on this Earth is to raise my little piece of the next generation to realize the importance of giving back and making the world a better place.

So many people struggle to find the reason for their existence on Earth and mine has always been crystal clear to me since losing my mom at an early age.

A lot of brides get told they’re the most beautiful bride on their wedding day. I got told I was the happiest, and that you could tell how much fun I was having the entire day. Those were the best compliments to me.

 

Anxiety was harder for me to come to terms with.

It wrecked my life for a while but since coming out of the haze of panic and worry I find life much more simple and peaceful.

I’m here. I’m breathing. I’m healthy. I have more blessings than I can count. Life is good.

I could be gone tomorrow. But right now I’m here, so I’m going to live.

Some days there’s going to be worry.

But isn’t there supposed to be? Worry makes you think and reflect, and keeps you from diving headfirst into potentially dangerous situations.

Worry is necessary.

After my freshman year I had to transfer from Bucknell to Penn State to save money.

At the time I was devastated. I felt like my dreams for my life were ending. (At 18!)

Looking back, it was the best thing that ever happened to me.

I wouldn’t have met Josh if I had stayed at my dream school. 

Burdens can really suck sometimes but they’re a normal part of life, and something I think people need to talk more openly about with others.

When people only talk about the happiness in their life and ignore or hide the troubles they’ve experienced they’re doing a disservice to others and themselves.

Your burdens are a part of you.

They’re important stitches in the fabric of your life that made you who you are today.

I wouldn’t be the same person if I didn’t experience the hardships that I have.

I wouldn’t love as hard, live as fully, or be as present.

My burdens are a blessing because they give happiness a perspective for me.

Happiness isn’t something I find. It’s something I am.

I choose to experience happiness like I choose to experience every other human emotion.

I want it all. I want a full, real, authentic life.

 

Question of the Day: What’s a burden you’ve experienced that is now a blessing?

 

 

Erin is an East Coast transplant who recently moved to Omaha, Nebraska to experience all the Midwest has to offer. She is a marketer, newlywed, cat lover, social media addict, and blogger at Girl Gone Veggie.

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Comments

  2. What a powerful post, prior to reading, I may not have agreed with you, but it is so true! This is wonderful! Thank you for sharing! You have truly made the most of all the opportunities in your life from this. i am a big believer in setbacks and challenges making you stronger and a better person. From that i think the burden of living away from my family has made me appreciate them more, and chase my dreams…without which I would not be the runner I am now 🙂

  4. Aww, hugs! When I go into worry or anxiety mode, I remind myself that I need to have Faith . . . . and also to live more in the moment rather than worry about “how it’s going to turn out.”

  8. Thank you for reminding me that it really is all about the perspective we choose to take. Burdens teach us about what we truly value. xo

  10. Good reflection-
    I too grew up poor. Got most of our toys from the local dump. Brought them home and washed them. Took several old bikes apart and made them into new ones. I didn’t know the difference until about third grade and then I “got it” that other kids (on the other side of the tracks) had much nicer houses, dresses, etc. It’s made me thrifty today and I am good about saving money.
    My daughter was born prematurely and had to have surgery when she was one day old.
    I had a social worker come to my room to talk to me as we didn’t know if she was going to survive -but she did and I got to take her home a month later. I never felt so vulnerable to a situation I could not do anything about-nor did I have family near to support me. It was a very alone time.
    Went through a horrible divorce and raised my daughter single handedly-put her through college and now I could not be happier know that I did that and how I provided for her.
    I have also battled Grave’s disease for almost 30 years-but am now on good meds
    We truly do NOT know happy unless we know all the other emotions life throws at us.
    Life will do that to you…embrace it all.

  12. Loved this post Erin. And I just need to tell you that you were an amazing and GORGEOUS bride! Thank you for sharing your story with us.

  13. You look happy AND beautiful in your wedding pictures. I am faced with an oppressing burden as my husband of 43 years was diagnosed with stage 4 and terminal cancer a year ago–average life expectancy with this type of cancer (prostate) is 4.5 years from diagnosis. Sometimes I cry all day, sometimes I try to just live in the moment, knowing that the moments with him are limited. But it has brought such an incredible closeness with us in our relationship, I am grateful for this time we have and the realization that we can no longer sweat the small stuff. Our love is deeper and more meaningful today, and we have an appreciation for each other that would probably never have been realized without this awful diagnosis hanging over us. So…..in this burden….I’m trying to find joy.

  14. i love this post. my burden/blessing is that i had to leave my graduate program last year, but it actually turned out to be the best thing that has happened to me lately because i finally had time to try out new things, like trying out freelance writing, and running a marathon. letting go of one’s past self is not easy, but i’m a lot happier than i was before, and i feel stronger for having made it through a difficult time.

  15. I love this post. It really is all about finding the good in every day. Sometimes it might take a while to find the silver lining to a situation, but there almost always is one.

    My burden is that my dad (for reasons unknown) attacked my mom and she died from her injuries then we had to go through the subsequent legal process of my dad being charged with her murder and getting him declared incompetent to stand trial. The silver lining is that through this process we discovered that my dad had been suffering from undiagnosed dementia so we were thankfully able to get him into an excellent care facility so that he could be taken care of.

    The other silver lining is that I realized I’m a much stronger person than I ever would have thought.

  18. Amazing post! One thing that I struggled with was having really low self -esteem. I think it was tied to the fact that my mother was ill so I was always unsure of the world around me. The burden of always growing up being in and out of hospitals is that you really learn to put things in perspective. Small stresses do not faze me at all now, and I have my mothers bravery to look at when I feel like it is too much. PS you look great in your wedding pictures!

  20. What an incredible way to look at things and approach life. I don’t know that I would ever have thought to count my burdens as a blessing but now I will try to remember this and work on doing just that!

  21. What a beautiful post. It’s wonderful that you’re able to see the good in situations where others might not. I wish you and your family all the best.

  23. Great post. I love reading about overcoming hardships and turning them to something positive. I also agree, that people should share more of the negatives along with the positives – people get a very skewed perception of other people’s lives when they read only positives all the time. Thanks for sharing 🙂

  24. I lost my mom at 14 and thought my life was over. At 28, I can’t say with certainty that I would be where I am today, a lawyer, if that had not happened. I was heading down a bad path with the wrong people, not talking to my father (parents were going through a divorce), and probably would have continued that way. I also, like you, see meaning in my struggle, something I know others have a hard time doing. I feel blessed to have the perspective I have gained from my struggles and know that it has made me a stronger person who is more able to appreciate life. Beautiful post! Thank you for sharing!

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