What experiences in life helped you grow the most?
Yesterday I spoke of fate and destiny. You could wonder, or question if all the things we experience or part of our fate or destiny.
Somehow you could say I had an interesting life. It was filled with several nice experiences, but I also have to admit, there were also very unpleasant experiences.
It must be said, the experiences that formed me most made my personality, in a certain way, are the events one would not wish others to have. Concerning those experiences or events, you could wonder if they were or are part of my fate or destiny. In which way are the things that happen to us part of our fate, and do we have to come to see that it belongs to our destiny? Is it like so many think that we can not live or work without fate? Or that everything fits in the bigger picture?
For many “Life is a struggle” so do know you are not alone in experiencing difficulties and therefore don’t be discouraged. So many are being shaped by life experiences, often not according to their choice, but coming over them wanting it or not.
For some, motherhood and fatherhood are life-changing experiences, which make them most happy.
Most people are formed in their teenage years, going to school, and having to cope with the relations over there. Some shall remember the times when they were mocked or bullied, and had to withstand several difficulties to relate to others. Somehow they had to find their way out ‘of the shit’ or life made difficult by those bullies. In the end, several people being bullied do not make it and are damaged forever, whilst the bullies, having become adults, shall often stay a bully and make life miserable for those around them.
For me, there have also been times people mocked me. Studying ballet, when going to school by public transport, other youngsters saw that I did ballet and called me all sorts of names. Very often I was called “homo” and considered to be “gay”. Having heard it for years, it did not impress me anymore and could put it off more easily.
Though, a horrible experience would stay with me for years, hidden from others. At the time when it happened, I thought everybody around me could see what happened to me. I shamed myself and would have loved to disappear into the skies. I tried to put it away and thought for years it was gone with all the other rubbish … but not so. Several years later it turned up again and caused several problems again in my later years. It even made that for certain works in my mouth they have to give me an anaesthetic.
In my life, I experienced two bomb explosions, but their impact was a totally different impact, then the horrible experience that changed my life totally. Because from then onwards I had a totally different idea about ‘man’ and the ‘human being’. At first, I thought I was an exception or was the only male who could experience such a thing. Several years later, I learned that all over the world many males had also experienced such a horrible act, where they felt dumped and unwillingly stiffened, not able to floor the opponent. Over the years I heard the stories of women having had such bad experiences. Preaching and being active on chat groups, I used my horrible experience to help others. As such you could say that the most horrible experience I had in my life, made me able to help others.
That assault plus an attack by a gang, as well as experiencing two (IRA) bombings (in the 1970s) and having to encounter another Islamic terrorist bombing at my work at Brussels Airport (in 2016), were the elements or events that moulded me in what I am today. Not being experiences one would like people to undergo, I must say they made me stronger and also relativising life much more, considering each day as a new one in which I can make the best out of life.
Much too often, people think they are the only ones having to bear such bad experiences or being the victim of something. Sometimes people think or wonder if it is God punishing them for something they did wrong. I must admit, I too sometimes questioned God (at first). They should know that God has nothing to do with all those bad things that come on our way.
Many also let themselves be carried into the cellars of the world by getting so depressed and stuck by their bad experiences, instead of learning from them and trying to become stronger because of those bad experiences. Much too often our bad experiences cause psychological patterns that keep us imprisoned, small, shut, and wounded and let us suffer, instead of taking the courage to break out of those patterns and liberating ourselves.
I did not want to get those bad experiences to ruin my life and found that I could be stronger than those people who caused me to suffer. I am convinced that it is not all good things in life. I believe we have to face those bad things as well and make the best out of it. Though I did not like those bad experiences I find it not worth letting them ruin my life. I do not want to hate them and let them draw me into debt.
I prefer to raise above all the suffering or bad circumstances that come unto me. Furthermore, I use those bad experiences as a learning school, and I am pleased now that I can use them to help others to heal.
There is my faith that I put my hope and trust in God and look forward to the moments I can help people with what I have learned from those experiences.
Is it fate?
You could say nothing happens without reason. So all those bad experiences I met in my life, though God did not bring them to me, He is the best person to help me to get over them. Perhaps God allowed it to pass onto me so that it could challenge me. I did not want to screw myself or bring me into the dark, but gave my life in the Hands of God, trusting Him, so that what I had to endure could expand my “inner being”, for raising me above the ordinary and for knowing the depths of myself and life.
I know and want others also to know that so-called “painful experiences” may open our inner eye of wisdom, provided we accept it with openness and without any judgement.
I prefer to step into the realm of wisdom and consciousness so that life will become ecstatic and something worthwhile to live for.
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Read more about it;
The experiences that made me grow the most
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Preceding
- Seeing the world through the lens of his own experience
- Are you being swept along by the world
- Struggles of life
- Need to inspire others
- Written-down thoughts
- Ability
- Ability (part 2)
- Looking at behaviourism of living beings
- Fate, destiny, time and place
- Even in tough times remembering the blessings
- The mistake is the one from which we learn nothing
- Thirst for happiness and meaning
- Change
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Additional reading
- Human experience maintained in a fragile existence
- Two kinds of knowing – experience and understanding
- Seeing the world through the lens of his own experience (Our World)
- Are you being swept along by the world (Our World)
- Scattered
- Bad things no punishment from God
- Looking at things, distinctions resolutions and expressions
- Struggles of life (Our World)
- Through much tribulation
- don’t look at me in that tone of voice!
- When examining ourselves
- For abused people
- An Appeal in Troubled Times
- Many opportunities given by God
- Even in tough times remembering the blessings
- Change
- Courage, Fear, and our vulnerability
- I Walked A Mile
- This was my reward
- An openingschapter explaining why things are like they are and why we may have hope for better things
- How can we prepare for the Kingdom of God
- Morality, values and Developing right choices
- Thirst for happiness and meaning
- The mistake is the one from which we learn nothing
- Value Positivism
- Joy: Foundation for a Positive Life
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Other articles of interest
- Words are understood by knowledge and meaning by experience
- At Present.
- What do you enjoy?
- Heaven and Earth
- The Beginning of Trauma
- An ode to the grim reaper who was my chaser not my keeper
- Manipulating life
- Experience
- Destiny
- Experiences in life helped me grow the most
- Experiences for Personal Growth.
- Grow-
- Personal growth; life’s weird and wildly successful fertilizers
- ReStabilization
- Life is a struggle so don’t be discouraged
- What experiences in life helped you grow the most
- Life is a struggle so don’t be discouraged
- Life your life
- finna start doing these random prompts on wordpress
- Motherhood
- Been undermined
- Looking into our fears — Fear, a friend or a foe?
- Trust, a compass to navigate through life
- My Life’s Greatest Mistake.
Some View on the World 
This line got me,
“It must be said, the experiences that formed me most made my personality, in a certain way, are the events one would not wish others to have.,”
I feel this too. I also really like what you say here, in conjunction with the above.
“..whilst the bullies, having become adults, shall often stay a bully and make life miserable for those around them.”
I have encountered what I call or term misery fueled rather than mercy filled souls, I think there are two kinds of beings with great impact on others those fueled by misery or mercy they are the bullies or the heroes of the world and I have met both of them, from the sounds of it you have too. I am glad you are positive and alive right now, because there is evil in this world that comes with human hands and hurts because flesh is meant for being an understanding force of love and joy, as a progression towards transcendence in whatever prescription comes with spiritual or religious worldview, or that is what I believe, and for atheist, this is the same thing meant by peace in death.
You are a very interesting individual, I admire you, ballet is a very meditative art form, and beautiful, I really appreciate it, and am looking forward to seeing more of it live and hopefully donating to places that support and preform ballet, when I get my finances in order.
I identify with you here as well.
“I shamed myself and would have loved to disappear into the skies,”.
I really appreciate your inner strength, I am afraid a lot to admit what I experienced while living on the street, the horrors I saw through my inflicted life style. I admire the strength you have to be able to say on here the things you learned that gave you the strength I can see so strongly in your writing.
I love what you say here.
“They should know that God has nothing to do with all those bad things that come on our way,”.
I am learning this now, through reconnecting with God, and learning about accountability, and forgiveness of self and others.
I am writing about misery versus mercy and the human being being able to be a hand of God or the devil, so this really spoke to me.
“Much too often our bad experiences cause psychological patterns that keep us imprisoned, small, shut, and wounded and let us suffer,”.
I am very inspired by your site, and subscribed to it. Thank you for reaching out to me. You helped me, I am in the process of trying to get to know God.
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Dear Damien,
Thank you very much for reacting and also for subscribing to this site. Perhaps you find some of my other sites also inspiring and uplifting. My ecclesia site might also give you some ideas about human relationships and the Divine Creator.
I am pleased to hear that I could come your way in your process of trying to get to know God. It is not always an easy way, certainly because this world is very keen to get people away from God. On my personal site Marcus Ampe’s Space you shall be able to read that I was brought up in an Old Roman Catholic family and having become an acolyte. But already from the age of 6 I had a lot of problems with the beliefs of that Catholic church and what I could find in the Bible, the Word of God, contradicting all those church dogma’s.
Though it took me years before I was pretty sure I had found the right way when in 1972 I had chosen to become a non-Trinitarian Baptist. When my wife got a child and we had to decide which religion it had to follow at school, my mother-in-law did everything to get him baptised and send him to the Catholic class. Baptism in the Catholic church was out of order for me, but after checked the other teachers of religion, at that time there not yet being a choice for a non-Trinitarian religion, we choose the Catholic Faith, but at home I tried to give the Biblical teachings and read regularly from the Bible.
Though all the time I had and got questions, wondering if I had chosen the right religion, because the majority was holding fast to that threeheaded god, the Trinity. It took a second near-death experience and six months of paralysation, before I really became convinced that the Non-Trinitarian Faith is the real or true faith, there only being One True God Who is an eternal Spirit no man can see. From my recovering years onwards and after having quit the Baptists, like thousands Baptists did because the Southern Baptist Union pressed for the Trinitarian dogma.
I do hope, in your search for God, you shall be able to find the Biblical way. Please let you be guided by the Bible itself, and you would be surprised how God may come near to you.
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Concerning the bullies who spoil our world, it is true that some of them manage to make their way over corpses and continue their former tricks of the fairground as adults.
Fortunately, those bullies have been prosecutable for some years now and several have already had to appear in court.
Since the #MeToo movement and the Corona era, society also seems more aware of that unacceptable, inappropriate, anti-social behaviour.
Once adults, bullies are easily recognisable because their faces betray a lot.
Yet it is unfortunate that because they were not sufficiently exposed and called to order during their childhood, many are able to continue their degrading practices as adults.
However, no one should allow themselves to be done by such types and if one sees such unacceptable behaviour happening it comes down to taking action there and then against those who are not ashamed to belittle and humiliate others, or even hurt them. Today, there are still too many people hurt and scoffed.
Sorry to hear you too have encountered what you rightly call or term “misery fueled rather than mercy filled souls”. It is right to think there are two kinds of beings with great impact on others: those fueled by misery or mercy they are the bullies or the heroes of the world and you but also many others have met both of them.
Bad enough we have to notice that in war zones, inhuman practices do get free rein and there is far too little or even no action by the ‘civilised‘ countries. Just see what happened in ex-Yugoslavia and what is happening now in Ukraine. In many countries, war crimes are still part of daily practice.
Far too many of us can still observe how humans can behave worse than animals.
But for us who believe in a better way of life, and those who believe in God, it comes down to being an example to others and standing up for those who suffer because of the fault of others.
Those who have been victims of bullying or man-made violence and degrading situations must show their abusers that they are not to be trifled with after all and by sticking to their own inner personality are the stronger of the two.
Even if there are those who allow negativism to prevail in the world, by keeping our heads upright and persevering with a positive attitude, we need to show that group of ‘non-humans’ that there is a much better way to get along and thus create a world where everyone can live together in peace.
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Most of the ones I have experienced have severing claws, and I saw them on the street. I only have something higher than myself to thank for getting out alive, I think.. I am glad I am coming to know the difference between the miserable and the merciful. I like the variance in the make-up of those words mercy full versus those only able to dispense pain at the expense of others.
I am learning that the merciful and those who follow something higher bring me much more peace than my previous life of pain and self-infliction of pain into depths of soul.
I really identify with what you said about humans being capable of far more despicable acts, I have seen a lot of things that have opened my eyes to the fact that I can no longer be a passive narcissistic ego maniac, who doesn’t stand up for what’s right because I know now, it needs to happen, because there are so many standing up for what is wrong. It is insane. I am working on making my own little redeeming act after a life spent in misery fueled addiction by trying to show people it is not cool to support suffering, even though Hollywood glamorizes it, which is despicable.
I am with you about the attitude thing, in recovery they call it an attitude of gratitude, and honestly, I am grateful to God I am not dead.
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