It’s been 10 years today since I left a company on the verge of bankruptcy. It was one of the most difficult things I’d ever gone through. I felt my identity evaporate, for to that point, my life was pretty much my business card. And suddenly I didn’t have one.

Like many people in the same boat, I held a “poor-me” pity party (no one attended but me). Eventually, I accepted the situation and started down a whole new path of consulting and freelance writing. And I didn’t look back, except in gratitude. Because that one event a decade ago has changed my life in a million beautiful ways.

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How many times has something painful or challenging happened to you, and when you look back, you realize it was one of the best things that ever happened for you?

• A job offer that didn’t pan out led you to another company where you found a fulfilling career
• An illness made you take a hard look at your life choices and decide to follow your soul’s call
• A painful breakup (that you were sure was going to destroy you) freed you up to meet your future spouse

So perhaps it’s not “poor me, poor me,” it’s “for me, for me.”

Our times of greatest pain can be the times of greatest growth – not something we want to hear when we’re in the middle of angst. But if we can remember a similar time when we survived, and if we can at least ask ourselves, “what lesson is this experience trying to teach me?”, then we’ve opened the door for healing.