Author: Brandy Metz, MSN, APRN, AGNP-C

Overcoming

“One day you will tell your story of how you overcame what you went through and it will be someone else’s survival guide.” ~ Brene Brown

Fun fact: Peacocks do not tolerate snakes in their territory. If they find them, they will eat them. Snakes are not their choice cuisine, but if confronted with the issue, the peacock will use the opportunity for sustenance and growth. Furthermore, when peacocks ingest snake venom, or any poison in their environment, it serves to brighten their plumage. The more snakes they’ve had to contend with, the brighter and more iridescent they become. Peacocks in all of their majesty are the symbol of the rising phoenix, and they are able to transmute the symbolic embodiment of evil into fuel and become stronger and more radiant through it. 

“A blazing fire makes flames and brightness out of everything that is thrown into it.” ~ Marcus Aurelius 

Ingesting venomous snakes is not a pleasant experience for the peacock. They are not immune to poison. They convulse in reaction. It is a painful process. If a peacock is thrown in a snake pit, they can be overtaken and experience perilous harm. It can be fatal.  But if they emerge, they will emerge formidable, well-fed, and boast the most glorious plumage you’ve ever seen.

“Goliath was the greatest thing that could’ve ever happened to David.” ~ Bishop T.D. Jakes

Every adversity you overcome can fortify you and strengthen you. Everyone has their own challenges. Everyone has their lot in life to contend with. Sometimes you are a victim of a snake pit by destiny and design. You were not dealt a fair hand. You were given great pain to overcome. And that is unfortunate. Your task is harder than the rest. You have more to surmount. And though you may struggle and fight through it, you can be made stronger for it. These adversities were meant to grow you and shape you into who you are meant to be. 

“You never know how strong you are until being strong is the only choice you have.” ~ Bob Marley

Everyone has their scars, hardships, traumas, and burdens to bear. Sometimes you’re tasked to overcome the brutality of others. Call it karma, dharma, God’s will, or the offshoot of happenstance or consequence. Bad things happen to good people all the time. The world can be profoundly, mercilessly, and unimaginably cruel. It is harrowing and heartbreaking to know the tortures humanity inflicts on each other. It is astounding the things that people can survive. Every tragic experience can be transmuted to serve an ultimate greater good. And that greater good can only be realized through the process of overcoming. Going through adversity and challenges can be growing and transformative in necessary ways. It summons up your fight. It unearths your hidden strengths. Overcoming adversities unleashes your inner power that can only emerge through pain and struggle. 

“Whenever God means to make a man great he always breaks him into pieces first.” ~ Charles H. Spurgeon

We all love the stories of people who have overcome great tragedy. It’s heroic. Their stories are never as much about what happened to them, as it is about how they rose from it. They lived through incredible trials and tribulations and transmuted all of their pain and suffering into strength and beauty. They struggled. They broke. They endured. They persevered. And through it all they found meaning and purpose. They were transformed. They overcame and became stronger, wiser, sharper, braver, and better for it. Nothing could break them or rob them of their goodness. They’re unstoppable. It’s been tested and proven. They are alchemists who turn their awful experiences into gold. Their testimonies inspire and empower us all. Their resilience gives us hope and guidance and encouragement. They become the beacons of humanity that show us how to transmute darkness into light. 

“Whoever has undertaken to build a new heaven has found the strength for it in his own hell.” ~ Freidrich Nietzche 

Viktor Frankl, a beacon of humanity and a survivor of the Holocaust, endured unimaginable horrors as a prisoner in Nazi death camps. He suffered the murders of his family. He witnessed the slaughter of countless innocent people. He was surrounded by the mounting corpses everyday. He was subject to the most depraved evils in the history of humanity. Genocide, infanticide, relentless torture, barbaric experiments, sadistic indignities, depraved humiliations, beatings, mutilations, rapes, and unbridled carnage. There was no evil undone. He endured all of these horrors while being worked to death, starved to death, and kept in infested disease ridden conditions designed for total annihilation. He endured this for years until he was rescued. His narration of his experiences is gut wrenching and hard to fathom. And even harder to fathom still was that not only did he survive, but that he was able to transmute his suffering into purpose and wisdom. 

“The way in which a man accepts his fate and all the suffering it entails, the way in which he takes up his cross, gives him ample opportunity – even under the most difficult circumstances- to add deeper meaning to his life.” ~ Viktor Frankl

Great depth can only be forged through great suffering. To transmute darkness into light is the ultimate goal of the soul. The world is a dark and scary place, but the darker the night the brighter the stars can shine. Everyone is contending with darkness, without and within. Overcomers are the beacons of hope and the light of humanity. They inspire hope, courage, and goodness in us all. Their stories demonstrate the magnificence, resilience, and beauty of the human spirit. Their stories resonate with us, because we recognize that same spirit within us. They remind us that we are stronger than our circumstances and challenges. They remind us that we can overcome anything. They remind us that our suffering, our devastation, our grief, our regrets, our defeats, and our heartbreaks can all be used for good. They reminds us that we too have the abilities of the great peacock. We can be strengthened, fortified, and beautified through our suffering. We can turn tragedy into triumph. We can transform darkness into light.

“What is to give light must endure burning”- Frankle 

We all have our obstacles to overcome. It is our assignment to make the most of the hand dealt us. We are not our wounds. We are not our traumas. We are not our mistakes. “ I am not what happened to me. I am what I choose to become.” ~ Carl Jung. Our objective is to find meaning and purpose in our tragedies. To choose to find a sense of acceptance, depth, and wisdom in life’s hardships. To not crumble into victim mentality. To choose to rise. To choose to become empowered not embittered. To transmute the bad into good, and the pain into strength. To overcome, so that you may be a beacon for others and a light in the darkness.