If there is one thing I have learned as a professional coach it's that everyone has "gone through stuff". Everyone. No exceptions. Life contains a number of rocky roads to travel and no one gets to bypass them entirely, however much we would like to.
It might look like someone else is getting a bye, and gliding through to the next round with everything in life going their way. But trust me, they will have had A Thing. At some point something awful, sad, shocking, terrifying, will have happened to them. I can guarantee it.
It's interesting, because we humans fight so hard against these rocky times, feeling that they "shouldn't happen". Or at least not to us. But...what if we accepted that we just got handed Our Thing, that somewhere in the midst of that inevitable Thing was some seed of an opportunity that we couldn't yet grasp?
I have found during my own tough times that there is officially nothing more irritating than someone trilling "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. It's all happened for a reason." In the midst of horror in my own life the only possible response to that well-meaning comment has been to fight the urge to high five that well-intentioned person. In the face. With a chair.
But once the dust settles, and time does its inevitable and miraculous healing work, maybe we can start seeing what glimmer of meaning we might be able to take from the trauma? Just maybe.