H.O.P.E. - Hold On, Pain Ends

It does make sense, doesn't it?

But it's not always that easy.

If we can only remember that 'this too will pass' in the difficult times, hard times, painful times... life gets easier than it seems in that very moment.

But how do you find anything good, anything positive when the whole burden of life is sitting hard and heavy on your shoulders? When you've had all big and little things planned immaculately for yourself and the lot collapses?

When you are looking forward to your bright future and unexpectedly find yourself in a hospital bed just before going under general anesthesia for an expansive surgery for the first time in your life?

How do you still find the happy in you? Because - for sure - it is somewhere there.

Well, as challenging as it may be, my only friend and companion in times of hardship is the attitude of gratitude. I could not survive emotionally and would not move forward at all if it weren't for all those great moments, people, and happenings in my life that I can be grateful for.

''When I started counting my blessings, my whole life turned around" Willie Nelson

I start with a simple list of three things I am grateful for, three things that happened today in my life and are great. It is very simple, even if it is not so easy at first.

Even though I cannot see it today in my sky, the sun shines somewhere.

If I wait and hold on, it will start shining in my sky, too, in its own time, at the right time.

I know that pain will end.

The physical one is easier to conquer; the emotional one is more difficult to let go of.

My experience tells me that the quicker I let go of thinking about the pain and hold on to the good things I can be grateful for, the quicker the pain ends.

Hope is really an optimistic expression of having faith in the inevitable: that for sure the sun will rise and then set; there will be no rainbow without at least a little bit of rain; a caterpillar will turn into a butterfly, and just when she thinks her life is over, she will begin to fly!

Before Alice got to Wonderland, she had to fall.

Hold On, Pain Ends