There’s a peculiar nature to life—that when one thing goes wrong, everything else seems to follow suit.

I began this year as I began all years—hopeful that this would be “my year.”

One way or another, I was determined not to let another year pass me by. I was going to stop living my life on the sidelines, seize personal happiness by the reins, and start following my dreams.

Instead, family addiction, broken relationships, and the end of my career became the theme of this year for me.

In truth, many of the problems and challenges I faced were years in the making. My life had been breaking at the seams for some time. It just happened to be this year when it all finally fell apart at once.

As I reflect over a year full of deep personal disappointments, financial setbacks, and lost relationships, I can’t help but also think of the unintended personal growth each experience brought with it.

Everything within our life’s greatest disappointments is meant to mold us into a better person.

Here are several ways this year did just that.

A Professional End is Often a Personal Beginning

The beginning of this year brought with it the end of my career.

Due to stress, exhaustion, depression, and a general disillusionment with life altogether, I submitted my resignation, and decided to follow a long-held dream of mine to become a writer.

In many ways, my professional loss has become my personal gain. Despite its financial setbacks, it has given me the opportunity to grow in my existing relationships and build new ones altogether.

With a less demanding work schedule, my husband and I have been able to spend more time together, and connect in ways we just simply didn’t have the time to before.

I’ve also been able to make several new friendships since leaving my career.

One of the most vivid memories I have from this year is my very last day on the job. Many of my colleagues, whom I had worked alongside with for years, didn’t even bother to stop in to say goodbye. I can’t say I was wholly surprised by this. The corporate culture I was in, was ruled by a sort of unspoken, toxic “club” agreement that stipulated when you’re out, you’re out.

In direct contrast to this, in the few months I’ve been at my part time job, I’ve made more connections with my coworkers than in all the years in my corporate career. We ask how one another is doing, we talk about our family’s, our weekends, and show genuine concern for one another. We even have lunch together from time to time, something we never would have done at my previous job.

While the end of my career has involved many financial setbacks, in an ironic twist of fortune, it has given my personal relationships a chance to grow and flourish.

Spiritual Growth and Personal Growth Go Hand in Hand

In the midst of life’s greatest circumstances, your beliefs will either be made stronger, or they will fall apart.

For me, they fell apart.

Growing up, my parents, through their words and actions, made me feel that something was

inherently wrong with me. Because of this, my faith existed in extremes. Anytime something bad happened I blamed myself, and anytime something good happened, I brushed it off as just a mere fluke.

This misapplication of important ideas and moral principles left me struggling to cope throughout my adult life when both major or minor setbacks occurred.

Throughout this year’s many ups and downs, it became apparent that my beliefs really hadn’t matured much since I was a child. I believed in the greater concepts of good and bad, right and wrong, but I had never examined them on any deeper level, or in a way that would add any true value or meaning to my life, or to those around me.

Holding on to outdated beliefs was one of the things that was preventing me from developing a more mature understanding of what was happening to me and why. Moreover, my inability to cope with setbacks was a sign that I was refusing to grow, not that God or the universe hated me.

This simple adjustment in thought helped me to stop taking things so personally. I gave up the notion that bad things were meant to happen to me, and instead embraced ideas that the universe is more fluid, open, and neutral.

Our beliefs reflect our hopes and dreams, but they can also reflect our deepest fears, and it’s important to find a balance between both. If you find yourself in the midst of a situation where you are questioning your beliefs, don’t be afraid to step outside of your comfort zone, and find your own interpretation and meaning for your life.

As you grow, it’s important that your beliefs grow with you.

It’s Worth it to Practice Gratitude

To help cope with the chronic disappointment and depression I was dealing with this year, I began a simple practice of gratitude.

Every evening, before I went to bed, I forced myself to acknowledge at least three positive things that had happened to me during the day. This tiny gesture toward positivity helped to put some perspective on my pain, and keep me grounded when I felt the most lost.

There was a simple, yet elegant charm to this year that I would have missed if I had chosen to remain pessimistic throughout all my problems.

I wouldn’t have noticed that despite my career ending, my husband’s has seen a steady incline, or that since spending more time on my writing, my work was accepted to an online publication.

Practicing gratitude is all about learning how to trust yourself again. It’s about affirming the belief that you are still capable of creating good, and still worthy of receiving positive outcomes in your life.

It’s worth it to practice gratitude or at least attempt to be positive, because being inherently pessimistic about your problems can prevent you from recognizing the new and positive opportunities still being made available around you.

Relationships Take Time to Mend

One of my sister’s had been struggling with an alcohol addiction for some time. While this year she finally made a full recovery, our relationship, and my relationship with my family, did not.

For the past few years, as I’ve watched my sister slowly kill herself with every drink, I found myself overcome with anxiety and depression as I began to cope with the very real possibility that she might die from this.

This realization deeply affected my relationship with my family. I lost all desire to keep up pretenses. Continuing to maintain the façade of a “happy” family seemed trivial in comparison to her losing her battle to alcohol.

Family addiction will shine a bright light on hidden family problems.  I knew that my sister’s alcoholism went much deeper than a general unhappiness with life. I wanted to talk about our childhood, and about the many things that happened that were obviously still deeply affecting us as adults.

But this is a conversation many in my family just simply weren’t willing to have. My family’s silence about our past taught me a valuable lesson in acceptance. It taught me that although you are changing, it doesn’t necessarily mean the people around you are.

I had to learn to accept their reluctance to talk, and find other means for expressing my own disappointment and hurt feelings.

Relationships take time to mend, and sometimes, a year just isn’t long enough. All you can do is give one another enough space and time to reflect, reset, and hopefully grow.

Your Past and Present are More Connected Than You Think

This year is also the year I also stopped dancing around my past problems, and started addressing them for what they truly were.

I grew up in an emotionally and physically turbulent home. Back then it was called dysfunctional, today it would properly be branded as abuse.

Calling abuse “abuse” has been freeing for me in many ways. No longer hiding behind my own self-imposed wall of denial, I’ve started to take a deeper look at some of the real causes behind my pain. I now tailor my healing journey to reflect readings and videos about overcoming trauma, toxic relationships, and dealing with the very real adult effects of childhood abuse.

Pieces of our present self were created in our past, and it’s worth it to revisit your past, especially if you feel like it may be impacting the quality of your adult life.

Our past doesn’t predict our future, but it can inadvertently influence our decisions if we are not aware of its impact, our needs, and what is driving us in certain directions.

Understanding where your pain comes from will you put you in a better position to heal it.

—

There is a subtle, yet fluid nature to life that when things fall apart, we often find ways of becoming more complete in the process.

This year was one of the more challenging ones for me, but it wasn’t without its reward in the form of the many life lessons I learned to help me as I continue my journey.

Within every disappointment is an opportunity for growth, and we have to be willing to have enough courage to learn from our failures and defeat, so we can move on and continue to grow into the person we are capable of becoming.