In a five-year period of time, as many of my worst-case scenarios came true. My health, home, business, marriage and even my children – it seemed as though nothing I cared about was left unscathed.  You can read more about my story here [in the What do You Really Need to RETHINK? Guide], and how nearly every one of these worst-case scenarios turned out to be a step on the divinely laid path to living, working and enjoying my life all the way out to the edges.

Lessons learned – among others:

1. Stop ruminating on what worst-case scenarios *might* happen. Doing so simply forces you to live the pain of them out hundreds of hypothetical times. Then, if any of them does come true, you’ll just have to live it again!

2. No one is exempt.  No matter how special, smart, beautiful, strategic or hard-working a person is, no matter how much they have already been through, there is no universal rule or God-granted exemption that says another bad thing will never happen to you. Sound pessimistic? Maybe at first, but when you get it in your soul that bad things are sometimes unavoidable and often work out to our good, that can reduce the feeling of shock, trauma and outrage when something does happen and relax our tendency to fixate on what might be coming down the pike.

3.  Process the past, then pivot.  Don’t avoid feeling whatever you need to feel – processing the painful experience deeply allows you to harvest the lessons of it and move in a new direction – the direction of thriving. This applies to you as an individual, or family and corporate groups.

Here is the 3-step flow I’ve found to be particularly powerful in processing painful past experiences, traumas, disappointments and failures, so we can get on with the business of transformation:

Step 1: Dive into the pain. Feel it.  And I mean, let it be excruciating, if it needs to be. When you have some down time, whether it be at home or at an off-site or meeting (i.e., not when you or your team needs to be incredibly “on”), allow the experience to come to mind, and give yourself permission to acknowledge the failure and sit with the feelings that arise.

Could be grief.  Could be sadness.  Could be frustration or anger.  Maybe even guilt or shame. Or panic, fear or terror at the consequences or karmic chain that might have been set in motion.

Whatever it is, let it come up – and whatever you do, don’t fight the feeling.  Leaning into these feelings, experiencing the grief or pain that comes up organically, is a critical step toward completion of the painful event or relationship.  You can’t grieve what’s not over, so feeling these emotions is the most fundamental, necessary way to declare the experience over and clear the slate for forward motion.

For some this is easy – tears flow freely. I, on the other hand, once spent about 6 weeks listening to sad songs (which Pandora kept shutting down), reading sad news stories (without trying to figure out how I can personally supply clean water to an entire continent) and giving myself permission to cry, all in an effort to grieve.  And I got a measly two flipping tears. Probably a result of having had a “1-cry-a-year, max” policy since childhood.

If you’re like me, and have built into your persona a resistance to these sorts of emotions because you are afraid of they might lead to a breakdown or make it harder for you to be The Competent One, hear this: a number of recent studies have shown that widows who were strong and resilient when their husbands dies had much longer-lasting physical and emotional effects from their grief than those who had a so-called emotional breakdown in the days after their spouses’ deaths.

Breakdown in order to break through: there’s a rethink for you.  Or, as Elizabeth Gilbert wrote, “ruin is the road to transformation.”

Harvard neuroscientist and massive stroke survivor Jill Bolte Taylor found that any human being’s physiological capacity to deeply experience excruciating grief and pain lasts a grand total of 90 seconds.

Yes, 90 seconds – and here’s the transcript of my own mental chatter from that minute-and-a-half:
“I can’t believe that happened, my heart is completely broken, oh – woe is me, the agony! What will I ever do?! I can’t imagine I’ll ever recover from the pain of – hmmm, wonder if I can score some of that Kalamata olive bread for cheat day?”

However, we do have the power to extend the duration of our deep pain, for years even, if we attempt to avoid feeling the appropriate emotional response to a situation, or if we simply choose to keep revisiting or being stuck on thoughts and memories of the event, which typically results in us circling back to the painful circumstances ad infinitum.

Dr. Taylor elaborates:

The 90 second rule is totally empowering. That means for 90 seconds, I can watch this happen, I can feel this happen and I can watch it go away. After that, if I continue to feel that fear or feel that anger, I need to look at the thoughts I’m thinking that are re-stimulating that circuitry that is resulting in me having this physiology over and over again.

When you stay stuck in an emotional response,you’re choosing it by choosing to continue thinking the same thoughts that retrigger it.

Step 1 to powerful ‘past processing’ is to lean in, feel your pain, let it be excruciating. 90 seconds, 90 days, 90 months or a lifetime – you get to choose.

Step 2: Metabolize, Part I: Extract the Lessons from Your Losses.  Whether your team has failed at an initiative and had to pull the plug, you had to fire an employee you cared about or you lost your home to foreclosure, if you want to turn your painful failures and losses into fodder for progress and transformation, it’s essential that you do what Dr. Henry Cloud deems “metabolizing” these experiences.

The parallel is to what your body does when it metabolizes food: it takes the nutrition it can extract from the food, then expels the rest as waste product.

After you’ve felt your 90 seconds of trauma and drama (or thereabouts), set about the process of extracting and gleaning insights and lessons from the experience that will serve you as you move onward and upward. If you’re in an organization, it might make sense to put a systematic process to this, including documenting the learning and analysis that will be applicable and useful to future endeavors and projects.

Step 3:  Metabolize, Part II: Get Over the Past by Eliminating What Doesn’t Serve You About the Painful Experience.  When it comes to expelling the superfluous elements of a painful experience like a waste product, do not underestimate the power of making an intentional decision to stop fixating, ruminating or perseverating on what has happened. Having some clarity on what you’ve learned will help you discard what doesn’t serve you (or anyone else, for that matter) about the painful experience by focusing you on the future.

Some other powerful tools for eliminating the pain and toxic remains of a failure or experience, organizationally or personally, include:

• Rituals and symbols of endings. Dr. Cloud recommends having a “funeral” for the dead division, product, or other ending – these can include going away parties to commemorate even bittersweet personnel moves, team retreats, or even grief or recovery support groups and classes, on a personal level.  I’ve always thought those divorce parties you see on reality shows were très déclassé, but I suppose that, for some, they serve a purpose.
• A corporate culture and personal values system that views some failures and losses as a normal part of the cycle of innovation, evolution and thriving.
• A clear, galvanizing vision for the future. Having an exciting, declared vision and commitment to an inspired future, for yourself or your company, is probably the single most powerful motivator for leaving behind the patterns and emotions that do not serve you and will hinder you from creating the future you envision.
• Avoiding “rebound” projects, endeavors or relationships until metabolism is complete. For example, if I had a dollar for every foreclosed homeowner whose home hasn’t even yet hit the auction block before they’re trying to perform mortgage wizardry to qualify to buy another, I could personally fund a Main Street bailout. Time and time again, I’ve advised: “Slow your roll!”  Instead:  Sit still, feel the pain of the foreclosure, move from the grief stage of denial and anger into the stage where you figure out what you would have done differently in your mortgage decision-making or personal finances (i.e., what you will do differently next go-round) , heal your finances and credit from the trauma of losing your your home (and/or job, etc.). Get all the way out of debt.  Save up.  Your next home purchase, a couple of years down the road, will be much more sustainable and drama-free for it.

You can’t hold onto waste products – the bitterness and pain left over after the lessons have been metabolized out of a disappointing or painful experience – and also be nimble, flex with the circumstances and thrive.

So, lean in, learn and let go – then go!