Our Wounds Can Be Our Teacher

I was given my first great blow in life when I lost a dream job in a company that was considered one of the best to work for nationally in the eighties. Of course I resorted to playing the blame game.  First focusing on other people then myself. I was losing confidence I will ever recover from what I consider a great defeat.

Wisdom culled from two books helped me get through this utterly disappointing time in my life. Nothing can be more different from where I got these two sources. One was actually bought from the Goodwill Store. It was a paperback entitled Go For It by Dr. Irene C. Kassorla.  I referred to this book and its message on strength in vulnerability in a past blogpost when I was struggling with how strong or not I should be in fighting my small cancer.

The other book that helped me tremendously to recover and find clarity over the loss of a job that I worked so hard to get and keep was entitled When Smart People Fail written by two women who suffered the same fate I did, Carol Hyatt and Linda Gotlieb.  My eye caught the book cover with its catchy title on its spine while I was at the Grandview Public Library in Missouri.

This book contained many reflections and stories by other persons who have experienced failure and defeat. Some gave accounts of what they did during those times.  One that stuck in my mind was the story told by Billy Jean King one of the greatest tennis players in the world. Even though she had one of the best winning records among the women tennis players she had her share of defeat in her career. When she used to lose a game she would go back to her locker room and instead of beating herself for her mistakes she would recall the stroke she missed and actually practice how it should have been done. For her to fret would not help her. But learning from her mistake would.

I recently read what another player said when asked in an interview what the best advice she had received, she just gave these two words "Next Game".  And that was what I did.  I had two more major jobs and one actually did not work out, again.  It took a third chance for me for things learned to finally sink in.  I am grateful that I never gave up but rather found strength from these two experiences of defeat and grew from them.

Note:  The thoughts in the poster was adapted from the Daily Meditation provided by Richard Rohr and in turn he adapted his meditation entitled The Positive from the Negative from the book Richard Rohr, Eager to Love: The Alternative Way of Francis of Assisi, pages 101-106, 111-112.