What is your darkest teacher?

I was listening to a podcast the other day with Brene Browne and she was talking about this concept of the ‘darkest teacher’ and I thought it was spot on.

We all have a darkest teacher, an experience in our life that sucks… HARD.

Something that we feel like we barely survived and yet when we find ourselves on the other side of it, we realise that actually the whole experience taught us more about ourselves and the world than anything else before it.

Obviously no one is putting their hands up to go through any of the shitty experiences of their lives again but hopefully with a little hindsight we can see that there was something positive that came out of them anyway. Perhaps even, dare I say it, our darkest teacher was an experience that we needed to go through, to learn the things we needed to learn.

Dark teachers come many different forms – losing a job, death, illness, breaking up, breaking down, losing a whole lot of money, fire, stuffing up, a verbal or physical fight, a prolonged time of just general misfortune, a car accident…etc..

Our darkest teacher stops us dead in our tracks.

It puts the brakes on in every areas of our lives because suddenly we’re in survival mode and all our energy is used up simply getting through the day.

BUT what if this forced STOP was actually an invitation.

What if this horrible, shitty, unfair experience that really shouldn’t be a happening to a nice person like you was an invitation from the universe to WAKE UP, to pay attention.

What if this whole experience was happening because you’re being invited to…

… turn and pivot in some area of your life that you’d become stuck in.

… build your boundaries – to stop letting others walk all over you.

… get really clear about what you want to be doing with your life and what you don’t want to be doing

… recognise how fragile life is and how lucky you are to be living it

… realise how toxic someone in your life is and why you need to let them go

… start giving yourself the love and attention you deserve

… stop wasting your days doing stuff that makes you feel like crap

… look after your body rather than waiting until it falls apart to do something

… actually recognise and FEEL how good your life already is, right now, without all of those things you’ve been feeling so desperate for

… notice how much support you have around you

… love the people in your life better

… rest more

… stop rushing through your life

… stress less and enjoy more

What happens if we survive our darkest teacher but don’t take the invitation?

We’re presented with another opportunity, another invitation. Perhaps we find the EXACT same thing seems to happen over and over and over again.

Until finally we take the invitation. We follow the message we’re being given.

It’s why we seem to repeat the same patterns in our lives until finally something ‘breaks the camels’ back and we say ENOUGH!

I’m done!  I’ve learned. 

And on we live.

What has been your darkest teacher?  What did she teach you?