Why everything (does NOT) happen for a reason | processing trauma, grief, negativity
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 12 ก.ย. 2024
- Chances are you've heard of the phrase, "everything happens for a reason" when dealing with challenges or struggles in your life. And while it's said with mostly good intentions, it's not always true.
Sometimes, horrible things can happen to decent people for absolutely no reason. So sometimes, there's no point in making sense of it because it just happened.
And when people DO find the reason behind why something happened, it's not because the event happened for a reason, it's because the person is trying to make the best out of their situation.
Something that goes hand in hand with "everything happens for a reason" is the fact that you "get stronger through hardships" and while it's meant to be uplifting, it can do the opposite.
When something traumatic happens, we might not get stronger through it because it stunts us. It hurts us. It inhibits us from gaining the strength to move forward in life without a perfectly wrapped life lesson.
And for those of us who do end up getting stronger, we don't get stronger because of our trauma, it's in spite of it.
It's simultaneously simple and complicated, as is life.
Give yourself the room to feel and process whatever happened to you in the way that fits your needs. There's no right/wrong way to process trauma and grieve. Do what you gotta do (unless it's either unethical, immoral, or illegal ofc)
I hope y'all are being kinder and patient with yourselves because you deserve nothing but the best 💞
w/♡,
Ari
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Thank you sm for this 💞 sending you so many hugs! :’)
💞 hugs! 💞
Thankyou for this. Ppl use that and many other quotes and phrases as a crutch or to try and make sense of things they think there is no answer to. They do this same thing with "karma", which doesnt exist.
You're absolutely right. I get that when we're faced with hardships, a lot of us tend to want to rationalize things, but sometimes there's no answer and there's no reason. Sometimes, things are just out of our control and the quicker we accept that, the quicker we'll be able to heal from it.
finally someone made a video about this phrase. I have depression and anxiety and when a stranger founds that out about me they usually say that, like no, stop. Does me having a traumatic childhood or a sad event happen supposed to be a good thing? lol
RIGHT? I know they're probably saying it to help, but they're just making it harder /:
Your traumatic childhood and difficult events in your life did not happen for a reason and I'm sorry you had to go through that. You deserved better. ❤️🩹
When it comes to western culture, I think people have been gaslighting each other for centuries. For centuries, people in parts of Afro-Eurasia have been worshipping a singular god, one both almighty ánd merciful. Random calamities happening to ''innocent'' believers can be pretty puzzling when happening under the supervision of a god that is both almighty and merciful.
Back in the ólden olden days (of Egyptians, Greeks, Romans etc.) people didn't really have this issue, because back then people believed in a pantheon of multiple, flawed gods. Ancient gods and all their flaws often wreaked havoc on the real world by acting on their mental frustrations. That way, random calamities always had a place within the realm of expectations.
But when people shifted to singular deities both almighty and merciful, explaining random calamities became harder, especially when seemingly pious people were struck by it. Random calamities are a semi-blindspot for mono-religions.
So ''everything happens for a reason'' is kind of the non-religious (?) version of ''God works in mysterious ways''. (And the latter at least makes some sense if you believe in God; the former is largely the same, but comes with even more vagueness and deflection.)
I have never thought about it like that, but you have a really good point. 😳
When there were multiple gods, they even resembled human beings to a certain extent because of how their emotions got the best of them. They were powerful deities, but very much flawed in their own ways, so it made sense that if a war broke out, it was because of the god of war (I'm heavily summarizing but that's the point).
Trying to understand or justify the horrors of the world under one almighty powerful god is difficult because it doesn't make sense. If the god we believe in is powerful and good, then how did these horrors happen? Why are kind actions being punished and cruel actions being celebrated in this world?
There's no answer that religion could say so that's where those phrases most likely came from. It really is gaslighting each other. Wow. Thank you for the insightful comment! 🫶