How You Can Use Crises to Transform Your Life

We've all had one crisis or another. For my family it was my husband and PTSD taking over, the loss of the twins I was carrying, deaths of all our family members, job loss, accidents and health problems. The list seems to never end. Right now it is a financial crisis, but we've had many of these hard times before.

It's really hard to get through hard times when things don't seem to be getting any better. Yet when you look back at other hard times you've faced, one thing stands out, those bad days didn't destroy you because you're still here.

Looking back, faith gave me hope and hope got me from one day to the next no matter what the crisis was. I turned the heartache of watching my husband suffer with PTSD and all that did to my family, into something positive. Helping veterans and their families get through their own pain. What you see on this blog is part of what I do. Tracking reports across the country makes it impossible for anyone to think this is not a national problem. The videos are part of it. Putting in my two cents on essays is part, but then there are the emails and heartbreaking stories leading up to emails when other families come thru the worst of times just like we did.

If you measure success by money, then I am an absolute failure, but if you measure it by lives saved, families held together and proving hope to other people, then I guess you could say I have succeeded. On the grand scale of things, I'm just a nobody, ignored by a lot of powerful groups no matter how hard I try to get them to just listen. Yet on a human level, I talk to some of the most magnificent people you'd ever want to meet.

Right now there is a couple involved with a ministry. He is a veteran trying to heal from PTSD and the wife is a Godsend to him, standing by his side and trying to do whatever she can to help him heal better. All they want is to take what this crisis has done and turn it into a positive outcome by helping other families and especially veterans.

There was a Vietnam veteran, outcast from everyone he knew yet all he wants to do is get better and stronger so that he can help other veterans.

These people are simply amazing. They didn't want to give up and they certainly didn't want to give in. Neither do I. Reading the advice from Tony Robbins may seem like just publicity for his new show but when you think of the gift he has to offer, let him publicize it all he wants because he's giving a lot more than others have.

A Chance to Break Through: How You Can Use Crises to Transform Your Life

Arianna Huffington and Tony Robbins
Posted: July 26, 2010

A month ago, when Tony Robbins was passing through New York, we met for a drink. In the course of our conversation, we realized that -- from our different perspectives -- we both had been thinking about a similar problem: how can people faced with enormous challenges carry on without collapsing under the burden?

I had just finished my upcoming book on Third World America in which I write about the millions of middle class Americans who are suddenly finding themselves without a job, or without a home, or without the possibility of giving their children a better future. By the end of the book, I found myself consumed with identifying practical solutions and sources of help that those struggling could use right away -- instead of anxiously waiting for government to act. And I recognized that it all starts with each individual's inner strength and resilience.

Tony, meanwhile, had been working on "Breakthrough with Tony Robbins," a series of primetime TV specials for NBC focused on the stories of people who had been dealt an incredibly bad hand by life. He showed me a clip and I was not just deeply moved but, more the point, I was struck by how these people were able to find the strength to transform their lives -- even in the most extreme circumstances.

The clip I saw was about a newlywed who jumps into a swimming pool on his wedding day, hits his head, and instantly becomes a quadriplegic. When we first encounter them in Tony's special, premiering tomorrow night, he and his wife are trapped in their house -- the wife feeling depressed and angry; the husband feeling guilty and at a loss for what to do. The transformation in this couple's lives that we see by the end of the hour is stunning -- and I knew it would be really inspiring for anyone going through difficult circumstances of their own (most of which, of course, would pale in comparison to becoming a quadriplegic).

By the end of our meeting, Tony and I had decided do something on HuffPost that would focus on solutions instead of problems. The result is Breakthrough: The Power of Crisis, which launches today.
read more here

How You Can Use Crises to Transform Your Life