Bishop T.D. Jakes

How to Turn Unexpected Pain into Power

Episode #454

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The first time I killed myself was when I took a job I hated.

I resurrected when I quit.

The second time I killed myself was when I lost all my money. It was the death of the future I thought I had.

I resurrected when I started doing the daily practice.

The third time I killed myself: I lost someone really important to me.

My heart broke.

But I resurrected when my friends came to my rescue. And writing became therapy again.

Every time I died, I was reborn.

“They look like the same thing,” Bishop T.D. Jakes said on my podcast.

“I describe the difference in my book: being buried and being planted look like they’re the same thing.”

But they’re not.

He told me the difference. “When you are planted you resurrect. And when you resurrect, you never resurrect looking like what was planted,” he said.

That’s why it’s a death. That’s why it hurts.

“It’s the death of what we had in mind before. The plant never looks like the seed. And if you’re willing to give up what you had in mind, you can discover a new you.”

I should’ve been crying.

T.D. Jakes has the voice of God. And I don’t mean that in a sacrilegious way. He just genuinely sounds like Jesus’s father.

Listen to his voice:

 

This is his second time on the podcast. He just wrote a new book, “Crushing: God Turns Pressure into Power.”

I wanted to learn the best ways to pick yourself up when something bad happens.

If someone feels stuck in a problem, what should they do?

He told me the pattern people go through when something terrible happens.

And HOW to either get through it.

Or stay stuck…

1. LET THE PAIN HAPPEN FIRST. HEAL SECOND.

Something bad happens. And people say, “Are you ok?”

It’s hard to be honest.

“No, I feel like I’m dying.”

People don’t want to hear it. Your bad feelings affect theirs.

They don’t want you to ruin their feelings.

They have to go to work today.

Sometimes I just feel sad.

And I just make a little bit of time for it. I let myself feel sad when I feel sad.

I have to.

I asked him, “What if my mindset is like, ‘No, I can only be happy if XYZ happens.’”

He laughed.

Because he gets it. He’s helped millions of people. All around the world. For over 20+ years.

And this is what he knows for sure:

“Nobody’s smart in pain. The brain does not distinguish heartbreak from a knife wound,” he said. “It processes pain the same. Regardless of if it’s physical or emotional pain, the same nerve endings notify the brain that it is in trouble.”

But the difference between physical and mental pain is this: we usually get over physical pain.

2. DON’T GET STUCK FOREVER

“I always say this to people,” T.D. said. “Maybe your listeners will consider it…Pain always leaves a gift behind, some wisdom, some nugget, some resolution, some conclusion about life.”

But there’s a caveat.

He said, “Pain leaves a gift behind as long as you do not get stuck within a pathology of pain. And fail to evolve.”

There are two ways to suffer:

  • A) either suffer forever
  • B) or don’t suffer forever

That’s it.

It’s a choice.

“Some people get bitter instead of better,” T.D. said.

That’s the trap to avoid.

“There comes a point in depression, or pain, or crushing, where I believe God throws you a rope. But if you don’t grab it, you don’t come out.”

And if God doesn’t throw the rope. You have to find it.

3. WORK ON HOPE

I’ll give you a quote from the podcast:

“Hope takes effort. It takes fight. It takes drive. Especially after failure.” – Bishop T.D. Jakes

4. CHANGE YOUR DEFAULT SETTING
Humans are built to evolve.

“And while that has made us sustainable for centuries, it also has a negative connotation,” T.D. said.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, the flip side of that is that we adjust to painful situations. And they become new norms for us. Whether we’re enjoying it or not, we become accustomed to it. And it becomes our default setting…”

But you can change your default setting.

Just by deciding.

And measuring.

Do this right now:

Check in with yourself.

Ask, “What’s my default setting right now?”

Then do this tomorrow. And every day.

T.D. said, “If we are going to get up off the floor after being crushed then we have to adapt to the possibility that there’s more for us than what we have right now.”

5. DON’T REFUSE THE POSSIBILITY OF A BETTER LIFE

Bad things happen. And it’s hard to not get stuck. But that’s a choice.

“We have to give up our lesser self to become our greater self,” T.D. said. “So many people get stuck in the pathology of pain because they refuse to recover.”

If I get stuck I make my brain sweat.

I write 10 ideas.

Or I do something scary.

I get on stage.

Complaining is easy in the moment.

But doing is what builds the resiliency muscle.

—

Nobody wants to be in pain.

But it happens.

People try to fix before processing.

That’s what this podcast is really about.

T.D. said, “Nobody wants to be crushed, Nobody wants to suffer. It’s foolish to sit here and say, ‘Oh I want to be crushed!’ No, no, no. I never want to be crushed. But sometimes things happen to us that we did not choose. But we can choose how we respond to it.”

 

 

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