When a tragedy or a disaster happens there are no quick fixes, there are no easy or simple answers, and if you do find one, it is only a temporary, scars and wounds do not heal overnight. Grieving is a process that takes time. It is longer for some, and shorter for others.

In order to start the healing process, we have to ask ourselves, what now? Where do I go from here. The first step to healing is to turn our pain into something else. It is, what it is, and it will be, whatever you make it.

Feeling guilty and beating your self up, self-pity, brooding, or whinnying and crying and feeling sorry for yourself may give you a little relief but it won't change your anything. 

Tragedy no matter how painful also brings with it opportunities. What opportunities is there to find in a tragedy? Tragedy can help us to refocus and reevaluate our lives. It is a often a wake up call. Sometimes we get so caught up in our everyday day lives, making a living, earning money, enjoying the pleasures of life, and having fun, but we often lose sight of what the most important things in life are, our priorities shift. We get so caught up with the petty, mundane non-essential things, that we begin to neglect the most precious and meaningful things in life that contributes the most to our true eternal happiness.

We can get so distracted by all the glam and glitter of life and we lose our focus, our minds gets muddle and cluttered up, we get thrown off track, and everything starts to gets fuzzy and hazy, we can't tell which end is up and which end is down any more, our minds and our hearts begin to drift, but when something bad happens, it forces us to wake up and refocus. Tragedy brings us back to reality and back down to earth.

Tragedy has a lot to teach us, if we are willing to pay very close attention and listen carefully to what it has to say, we have already discussed how our muscles grow, muscles will never grow, unless they are stretched, exerted and challenged. Without the stretching and pulling they will shrivel up, atrophy, and breakdown. If and when tragedy strikes, it is like stretching our muscles, it can be a catalyst for growth, it can trigger new growth. It can transform our lives and encourage positive change. Instead of seeing it as an over-whelming insurmountable obstacle to big to tackle, and letting it suck the life out of us or intimidate us, we must learn to as it as an opportunity to grow and to improve. Sometimes tragedy no matter how unpleasant it is, can turn out to be an opportunity in disguise.

It can help us build our faith, it can make us more resilient, it can give us greater con-fidence and an opportunity to test not only our strength but also to test and build our character. It can test our creativity and our resourcefulness. If there are flaws and weaknesses in our character it will reveal them and bring them out in the open so that we can begin to correct them.

Going through rough patches is not always a bad thing, even when it's painful and unpleasant. Without challenges and obstacles we will never grow. Sometimes just like with our physical muscles, in order for growth to happen we must be stretched and tested to our limits. Tragedy helps us tear down our old barriers and limitations, our doubts and fears, so that we can start to rebuild them.

By breaking down the old barriers and limitations and letting go of our old thoughts, ideas and the mindset that held us back and kept us from getting stronger, our minds and our hearts can break free of the chains, the ropes and the bars that kept us imprisoned for most of our life. It can free us from the old mindset kept us from developing the talents and gifts, that makes each one of us unique and special. Tragedy has a unique way of making us rethink, and reevaluate our lives, it changes the way we look at things and the way that we think about things.

Tragedy  forces us to open our minds and hearts to new and better ways of doing things, so that we don't get trapped and caught in our old ways and habits. Many of us get stuck and we never grow, because we are not willing to face and take on new challenges, we get trapped inside our our heads and we get in the way of our blessings and opportunities. That is why some people never grow or make any progress in life.

Some people make excuses, they whine and complain and feel sorry for themselves, they wallow and drown in self-pity, all they can talk about is how bad their lives are, how bad they have it, hoping that everyone will feel sorry for them and pity them just as much as they pity themselves, they tell their sad sob story as many times as they can to anyone who will listen.

They aren't looking for support or for advice, they just want others to join in their little pity party, they are looking  for attention not for help. There is nothing wrong with pouring out your heart and unburdening yourself when you are hurting, that is a vital part of healing. We all need to bear and open our souls from time to time. Sometimes we need to share our pain and anguish. Sometimes, we need to unload some of our grief, that is what true friends are there for to help us carry our burdens.

We all need someone to lean on, someone to comfort and console us, someone we can share our pain with, someone who will empathize, sympathize and understand us, someone we can confide in, and help us through the cold, dark lonely bitter nights. someone who will help us work through our pain.

The problem is, that some people are not really looking for help to work through the pain, all they want to do is complain, and belly ache about their problems to get sympathy and attention, but that's not going to make anything better. Someone once said; that whining and complaining is like sitting in a rocking chair, it gives us something to do, but we'll never get anywhere. We will always end up in the same spot and the same place we were before.

True friend will help us carry our burdens, but they will not carry them for us. They will love us and support us, they will never give up on us, but they will never enable us, by letting us avoid our problems and not face them, because that would not be really helping us, it would be doing more harm then good. They cannot and should never try to solve our problems for us, instead they should try to us find solutions.