The most difficult challenges are the ones in which we feel alone. Seeking help—and not just any help, but the right kind of help for you and for what you are going through—can be the driving force to overcoming your challenges.
A long time ago, I was looking for help. I was devastated by my divorce, and I knew I couldn’t get through it alone. So, I started looking for some sort of support. At first, I believed I’d found it in the form of a support group for people that were going through divorce. I checked out the meeting times and decided to attend one of their sessions.
When I arrived at the session, I felt really great about what I found there. I introduced myself and told them how unhappy I was about my divorce. Everyone was really nice, and I could see some of them nodding their heads as I spoke. They understood what I was going through. I thought then that I would make good friends here, that these people would commiserate with me, and that I would get the help I needed to get through the private hell that was my divorce.
Then it was Dave’s turn to speak. I hadn’t met Dave before that night, but I’ll never forget him. His story was touching and sad. He explained that his wife had been having an affair before they got divorced. She’d taken their children away, leaving him alone and devastated. He was paying child support and was barely making it financially.
I could see the anger and frustration in Dave’s face, and I could hear it in his voice as he spoke. Listening to Dave, I found myself feeling extremely sorry for him. His situation was horrible, much worse than mine, and I felt like I shouldn’t be complaining.
In light of Dave’s problems, my own problems suddenly seemed much smaller. And I felt better. I started to think that I had this whole support group idea figured out: you share your story with others who are going through the same situation. Then you hear their stories and realize that some people have it much worse than you, which leaves you feeling a lot better. Okay, I thought, I get it.
But I didn’t quite get it. During a break in the session, I struck up a conversation with Dave at the coffee station. We talked about where we were from, and we both said we were sorry for the hard times we were each going through.
Then I asked Dave how long it had been since his wife had left him. He looked me in the eye and told me it had been 11 years! That long, and I could still hear the anger that was fresh and raw in his voice. I almost choked on my coffee when he said it. He’d spoken to the group as though he was going through his divorce at that moment. I couldn’t believe he’d held onto his anger for so long.
I’m sure Dave wasn’t indicative of everyone in the room that night. Even so, I decided that I was in the wrong place. Listening to other people’s horrible stories may have been reassuring, but it wasn’t what I needed. I was looking for solutions. I didn’t want to learn how to cope with divorce, or stew in anger for years to come; I wanted to learn how to get through it, and how to go on living afterwards.
Unfortunately, I made the same mistake when I was dealing with my brain tumor. I reached out to a support group, online this time, and I heard about other people’s struggles with horrible symptoms, and the challenges of recovery. It only served to depress me. I was about to have surgery, and the last thing I needed was to be thinking about how horrible my life was going to be afterwards. Once again, I decided the support group wasn’t for me, and I signed off.
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I eventually found the help I needed to deal with both challenges, and it didn’t come from people who were facing the same challenges as me. It came from people who had faced those challenges and gotten through them. They’d been through divorce, undergone brain surgery, struggled through recovery, and they’d made it through to the other side. They’d rebuilt their lives and found happiness once again. And that made all the difference.
Finding the right kind of help when you are facing a big challenge can be the most important thing you do. Often times, that help—along with inspiration and guidance—comes from someone who has already solved the problem. We need to seek these people out so we can learn how they did it, what worked, and what didn’t.
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