Throughout my life I have suffered a lot. I’ve been depressed, rejected by loved ones, betrayed, I’ve been bullied in school, humiliated, disrespected and lied to. I have also experienced heart break, failure, been manipulated and hurt.

I’ve suffered through panic attacks, anxiety and suicidal thoughts, heck I’ve even been through physical and psychological abuse. But don’t worry I won’t go into all that!

You might also have experienced some of these things or something related to it. In your own way, you have suffered. We all suffer every now and then.

I want to share with you a story from my life. There was a time when I used to be criticized constantly for whom I was what I did, said, and thought and for being myself. Inside of me it hurt like hell, I had no one to share what I was feeling, no one who could understand what I was going through and no help at all to get away from that criticism. And I had a lot of built up anger because of this constant nagging and critique. Many times I was too scared to speak up and the few times I mustered the courage to do so, let’s just say things didn’t end very well at all.

Point is this; all that anger and suffering inside of me became fuel. Fuel that I used to take out on the court (I used to play badminton) and those days’ people used to ask me what the hell happened to me, when did I get so good?

I didn’t know it at the time but deep down inside of me I had already made a very crucial decision and that decision was this; I will do everything in my power to get out of this hell and I WILL create a life where I SET THE RULES.

And because of that decision made so many years ago, today I have created for myself a life where I set all the rules. I see it like this, thanks to the suffering I was able to grow more than I could ever imagine. Thanks to people laughing and not believing in me I got the drive to prove them wrong. Most importantly I proved to myself that I could do everything they thought I couldn’t. And I did and continue to do so.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I don’t see suffering as all that bad. Where too much of it can be devastating and in some cases even lead to suicide, which is so damn sad. It breaks my heart when I hear about it. But if we learn how to deal with our suffering in a way that can break us free I believe we can find our way to happiness.

Meaning I don’t think there is any shame in suffering, instead we should be proud of all that we have gone through. We still stand strong. And the wounds we carry from our sufferings, we wear as a Warriors badge. My suffering is my greatest source of power. It’s where I have taken the risks, trusted in someone, taken decisions I believed in, made the mistakes…It’s where I have lived.

Most of us know that suffering is a part of life and the sooner we can accept that, the closer I think we are to experiencing what happiness and freedom truly mean.

This might sound ‘cheesy’ to some people and I might even come across as a little crazy. I wanted to share a part of my personal story in the hope that someone out there can relate. And to convey that it is ok to suffer and that there isn’t ANYTHING wrong with you if you are suffering. And I think that’s a worthy message to get out.