Breaking Point

Building resilience is not fun. Yes, you heard me correctly–building resilience is not fun. Let’s see a show of hands…anyone out there with me on this?

Sailing smoothly through life without trials, tribulation and struggles–now THAT sounds fun!

Facing the little struggles that make up daily life as well as the big struggles that serve as inflection points in our lives–yeah, not so much.

But what would we be if not for the struggles we face in life?

Take one aspect of life that I have experienced during the last ten months of COVID as a seemingly insignificant example: We in the veterinary profession have had to face a totally new way of “doing life” in the form of curbside care. For the many of us veterinarians who are introverts and would prefer pets come to us sans owner it seemed like a dream come true at first. There was a meme floating through the veterinary community from the popular satirical website The Cage Liner that attested to that fact: 

But that honeymoon feeling quickly dissipated as one month rolled into two, then into three and now into ten. Many of us, myself included, have come to miss the face-to-face interaction with clients. So many of my clients are like an extended family to me and my staff, and to not have the chance to chat about life in general while working with their pets has left a hole in our daily lives. It is so much more difficult to go over imaging and lab results when the pet’s owner is stuck in the parking lot. So much more difficult to foster the connections with new clients that are needed to set the foundation for a trusting veterinary-client-patient relationship when they are not in the room when their new puppy is examined. So much more cumbersome to break bad news to a client when you have to mask up and meet them on “safe” (yet impersonal) ground in the parking lot.

Yeah, I realize that to some these struggles may seem petty. There are some really heavy things going on in our nation and our world at the current time. People are dying, political unrest is rumbling under the surface of our nation bubbling up through the cracks in our façade, marginalized groups are crying out for justice and so much more. We as a nation are at a pretty pivotal point in our history at this exact moment. What is common to these examples and what I outlined above is a solitary thing: we all face struggles.

But as the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche said “…What does not kill me makes me stronger.” (Ok, now don’t go down the wormhole on this one people…while I am not a student of philosophy, I do realize the writings of Nietzche can be a hot-button for some. Just take it as an example, not a point of contention). We have a choice in life: to either let the struggles of life break us or to allow them to build us.

What is the difference between an obstacle and an opportunity? Our attitude towards it. Every opportunity has a difficulty, and every difficulty has an opportunity.

J. sidlow baxter

Back to my earlier example of the trials and tribulations of curbside veterinary care: during this time I have been forced to work on skills that, quite honestly, I sucked at before COVID forced me to face reality including empathy, compassion and communication. I was not raised in a family where communication skills were a strong point (I was poor at it for a reason) and communication was not a part of the curriculum when I was in veterinary school (though it is becoming a more prevalent area of study). I struggled daily during my undergraduate studies, throughout veterinary school and into my first decade of practice. Five years ago I saw the writing on the wall that lacking this skillset was a roadblock in my life, professionally and personally, which led me to seek guidance and expand my skills in this area of practice. I still struggle at times (we’re all a continual work in progress), but this earlier recognition of deficits in my life, along with the influences of our current practice dynamics, has been the fuel for change in my life. Day by day I am working to be a better verbal communicator with my clients and staff, which in turn is helping me strength those skills at home with my husband and thereby pass this newfound knowledge and skills to my children. As my therapist would say, I’m “bending the beam.”

Truth be told, I see this area of facing struggles and obstacles in life from a theological perspective as I look on life through the lens of my Christian faith. One of my most loved Bible verses is John 16:33 “…here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I [Jesus] have overcome the world.” There–the author of my life (and yours, if you choose to realize it) said it–we will have trials, we will have sorrow. The crux of the situation is such: how are we going to handle those trials, those struggles, those sorrows that life in this fallen world serves up to us. Once again–are you we going to let these struggles break us or build us?

My perspective on life’s struggles wasn’t always so secure. I can remember being crushed by client interactions gone awry, sliding down the hallway wall at my clinic in tears and crying out to God the question as to why it had to be so tough. At that point in life my faith was juvenile at best. I wanted life to be easy, I wanted to not have to change myself and how I acted and interacted. Newsflash: if you are not willing to play an active part in the solution (the act of building resiliency through the trials of life) then those struggles will break you. What was my inflection point in this journey? Realizing that I could not do it alone, that it was only through taking my pride, my shortcomings, my brokenness to the Lord that I would be able to make the changes necessary for these trials and tribulations to build me rather than break me. I went from seeing God as this cosmic keeper of the world to knowing Him as my partner in life and my heavenly counselor. A heavenly counselor who helped me see that seeking the help of an earthly counselor was not a sign of weakness but rather a sign of a maturing person seeking to face their struggles and shortcomings head-on rather than hiding from them. I by far do not have it all “figured out” and my journey has been riddled with hills and valleys. Each time a crest the hill I can see the light of the Lord beckoning me forward and each time I plunge into the depths of the valley He is with me there as well to guide me from the darkness.

When a train goes through a tunnel and it gets dark, you don’t throw away the ticket and jump off. You sit still and trust the engineer.

corrie ten boom

And it is with this faith and security in the greater plan at work that I face the daily struggles that life can throw at me.  Struggles abound when you are a wife, a mother, a business owner, a solo practicing mixed-animal veterinarian, and are battling rheumatoid arthritis . Last week I received an early morning call from a client who had a pig in labor and was desperately needing assistance. They had done all they could and were hoping that I would come help (as we joke in the veterinary field, they were hoping my magic wand wasn’t broken). Keep in mind that pigs are NOT my area of expertise and my experience with them is slim…extremely slim. Did I want to say “Nope, not my jam, call someone else”? Did utter fear of the unknown and the uncertainty of the situation strike me to the core?  Why of course! This was going to be way out of my comfort zone. But–and here’s the lightbulb moment–it is outside of our comfort zone that real growth has a chance to occur. Did I know exactly what to do to help this pig? No. Did I have the knowledge base (and friends to call) that would give me the foundation to stand upon to help. Why yes! If I had avoided this uncertain situation outside of my comfort zone I would have missed seeing the heartwarming interaction of the client with her pig. I would have missed the opportunity to share my knowledge and experience. I would have missed the feeling of relief and elation as I pulled a stuck piglet from his mother’s womb. Was it easy? Far from it–it was both mentally and physically taxing. Those mental and physical challenges were just what I needed though to come to the realization that while I may not have had the first hand experience I did have a foundation in the necessary skills and knowledge. I gave the opportunity a chance, overcame the obstacles, and came out the other side stronger and without regret.

So, as you face the daily trials and tribulations of life which will you chose? Will your choice be to face the struggles that life has put before you with the brave determination to build resiliency, to see the opportunity in each difficulty? Or, will you chose to be crippled by complacency, to allow an opportunity to be seen as an obstacle, to throw up your arms in defeat and allow the struggles to break you. God has given us free will so that we can make our own decisions. That gift is weighty though, and each day you have many choices to make: will you live with boldness or fear? With fortitude or timidity? With confidence or self-doubt? Will this be your breaking point or your foundation? Only you know the answer to those questions.