What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger or does it?

A song, a phrase that is being used enormous times in an effort to make you feel better

The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche’s original line was “Was mich nicht umbringt macht mich stärker.” The saying comes from the “Maxims and Arrows” section of Nietzsche’s book, Twilight of the Idols (1888). It is usually translated into English as “what does not kill me makes me stronger.” Thank you Google! 🙂

This phrase came into my life as a song by Kelly Clarkson. The song conveys how to overcome the difficulties you face in life and to stand strong.

YT : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xn676-fLq7I

What got me thinking was the process of standing tall after a storm has passed in your life or when you are still recovering from it. Everyone has their version of storms in their lives. Be it your childhood experiences, troubled teenage years, loveless relationships, medical concerns or trauma that you cannot categorize into any labels. How do you help yourself in getting up from that dark times of a blank mind?

From what I have observed, When a person (be it a child or anyone at any age) goes through something that literally breaks them it is really hard for them to get themselves back on their feet. What helps them is the strength that is imbibed in them to go through it all. A well protected person who is not connected to the realities of the world will definitely find it difficult to overcome any hardship. I am not recommending tough love, because I do not believe it will help anyone. One receiving, might take it in their stride or come into the thought process that no one understands them and the one giving will think they are doing their best to nurture or later point question themselves of where they went wrong. It all depends on the person on how their minds perceive. One absolute strength we can help imbibe is to give the person a strong sense of stability that whatever happens, they have a strong foundation or shoulder that they can lean on.

Personally, I will give the props of my stability to my Pa, My sissy, even to you Ma (I know you are reading and yes you are my strength too :P) and my dearest Hubby. Yes, as the cliche sounds I am my Pa’s gal, proud to be. However, it is not all greener on this side. It comes with it’s own hindrances and tough situations where you get the actual realities of this world. I can definitely say that my Pa has never sheltered me or kept me away from watching or learning of how the world works. And am Thankful for that in a way. It was hard to understand why when your conscience is growing, but you get to see another point of view to everything that is happening. I can definitely say that this might not be the case if it had happened to anyone else. He just gave me front seat viewing point to things that can happen and it made me think about ‘What would I have done if I was in that state’?

Based on all these, there was a sense of security even if it was not the conventional way to teach that it is not always rainbows and butterflies in this life. Our minds have a weird way of making sense of instances that happens. Our eagerness to make sense of the storms in our lives, all fall back on the preconditioned thoughts. It can be a spiritual sense of security or the security that the people who means the most to us are always there irrespective of anything that happens in our lives, which helps us ride the most tremendous storms. What happens to the person who has not gained that sense of security? In some form or another. Would that storm kill them or make them stronger?

In a way, those storms show them the realities of their thoughts but where do they get their safe space from? Most of the times, these persons fail to comprehend the thoughts created by these storms. And even if they do, which is a blessing in itself, how do they pull themselves out of it? Because if they don’t it becomes a cycle, one after the other. Everyone learns to fight in one way or another. But the process of learning to fight and to adapt is a tedious process that starts from childhood. Adapting to understand that it is not the tough things that helps you grow, it is the little things. To built a resilience within yourself based on love and nurturing yourself. A balance that helps you keep your sanity and to be kind to the world around you, but most importantly be kind to yourselves.

So I don’t believe it is the turmoil of our lives that makes us stronger it is the love, kindness and security that helps us make a conscious effort in being the best version of ourselves.