Growing up in Northern Ireland, I experienced a lot of tragic events.
One particular occasion was In November 1987. Gordon Wilson and his twenty-year-old daughter Marie were attending a Remembrance Day service in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, when a bomb exploded. The pair were buried under six feet of rubble.
In an interview with the BBC, Gordon described with anguish his last conversation with his daughter and his feelings toward her killers: “She held my hand tightly, and gripped me as hard as she could. She said, ‘Daddy, I love you very much.’ Those were her exact words to me, and those were the last words I ever heard her say.”
To the astonishment of listeners, Wilson went on to add, “But I bear no ill will. I bear no grudge. Dirty sort of talk is not going to bring her back to life. She was a great wee lassie. She loved her profession. She was a pet. She’s dead. She’s in heaven, and we shall meet again. I will pray for these men tonight and every night.”
Historian Jonathan Bardon recounts, “No words in more than twenty-five years of violence in Northern Ireland had such a powerful, emotional impact.”
In their book, Dr Brand & Yancey probe the mystery of pain and reveal its importance saying, “It is an indicator that lets us know something is wrong, pain has a value that becomes clearest in its absence. Indeed, pain is a gift that none of us wants and yet none of us can do without.”
In my coaching, I help others assume every misfortune can be turned into an opportunity/ gift from the perspective of turning pain into a gift to move forward.
Think of it this way; If you put your hand on a hot stove, the pain informs the body to remove your hand. Pain is good! What is not good is to keep your hand on the same spot and continue with the pain, which is precisely what we do when we dwell on misfortunes that have happened to us from a place of fear, guilt, shame, revenge, cynicism and all those other negative behaviours.
Ironically just deciding to let go of negative thoughts is a gift in itself and strengthens ones resilience for events down the road.
This sounds like a circular argument, and it is!
In his book Positive Intelligence, Shizad Chamine, who has worked with and coached thousands of leaders across the world, suggests:
“you choose to initiate either the snowballing, self-reinforcing & self-fulfilling of responding to pain as an obstacle to moving forward in your life or the snowballing, self-reinforcing & self-fulfilling of pain as a guide to help you navigate your life.”
Once you believe you have a choice, it is easier to choose just to let it go or invest your time and energy to turn it into a gift of knowledge, power and inspiration.
Whether you are experiencing a life-changing event, a new career, dealing with conflict or maybe figuring out how to be in a better place than you currently are in other walks of your life, there are three gifts to help take the smallest possible step forward.
The three gifts say ‘when I feel pain (from current or past, or things that I think will happen), I can turn it into knowledge, power, and inspiration.
Gift of KnowledgeWhat gaps are missing, and what knowledge do I need to gain to change the future from what it is currently?
What emotional muscles do I need to strengthen to stop me from constantly feeling ….?
Because of an experience, what inspiration do I now have that I didn’t have before? ‘This hasn’t worked out, so I can…’
Gordon Wilson remains to this day one of my heroes and went on to become a respected peacemaker and an Irish Senator. He set up the charity The Spirit of Enniskillen, which influenced a generation of reconcilers and peacemakers in Ireland.