I was listening to a Spencer Quinn Chet and Bernie audio book where the man and dog star as an effective detective team: the dog narrates.  Today I heard Chet, the dog, recount how he regrets the way he flunked out of canine school, apparently with an unfortunate incident involving a cat. He goes on to report that out of those circumstances came meeting Bernie, his current master, and what a wonderful happenstance that meeting was! For years afterwards in these novels, the dynamic duo have been  partnered and shared many an adventure. I love noticing how things we would never choose regularly lead to really cool things. 🙂

I keep a list of such things handy. Here are brief hits of some favorites:

On one of her recordings Caroline Myss told  a story which really stuck with me. A woman (call her Lana) went off a steep embankment in her car, a horrible accident. To save her life she experienced amputations below the knee on both legs. Lana had loved to run and she wanted to run again. Determined, she used artificial legs– but she was not happy with the way the available ones allowed her to move. Undeterred,  she designed her own artificial limb– apparently in the shape of a question mark which provided more spring for steps. After a number of years, she was asked how she now viewed that life changing car wreck. She said, “Before the accident, I never inspired anyone. Now I do. I really value being inspiring.”

In another great story, I recommend reading about James Costello. You can find an article about him  at this link. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/27/boston-victim-marries-nurse_n_5718501.html. James was seriously injured in the 2013 bombing at the end of the Boston Marathon. Sent to rehab, he healed there for months. There he met a nurse with whom he became friends. When he healed, they courted and then they married. He is quoted as saying, “I am actually glad I got blown up.”

In my life I experienced a break up of a romantic partnership which had spanned 27 years .At the time the ending seemed like a horrible tragedy, unplugged from connections and thrown down on the mat of life.  In those early months after the separation, I had no idea what could come out of this heartbreak. As my life has unfolded, in less than two years time I was changing my life, moving to a new state and beginning a new chapter. I have learned how to be happier than I ever had imagined being. The freedom to move and change was key, and the juice from the pain catapulted me to adventures of which I had never dreamed. At present I do not have another partner, looking now from a space of having a great happy life as a single. Then I had no idea at all how much good could flow from “bad”.

As I was working on this piece, I did a search at the site goodnewsnetwork.org. Up popped the title “Something Good Always Comes Out of Something Bad”. Its author, a mother, widowed, kept quotes from her daughter in the years after the father’s death, words about how the daughter saw things. In time this woman, Eileen Douglas,  wrote and published a children’s book entitled “Rachel and the Upside Down Heart”.   In the piece she goes on to include accounts of how this book helped other children heal from great losses.  She conveys the essence of what I am talking about beautifully. You may read the piece here:_ http://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/upside-down-heart/.

I recommend you keep some inspiring stories like these close at hand– so good to review them when you need a lift. Do you have some now you want to share?  Even better, do you have a story from your own life which shows us all that good flows from experiences that we did not originally prefer at all? Please write to jpearl@streamofyes.com. Isn’t it great how we can inspire one another!!??