It’s the most wonderful time of the year, right? Except it doesn’t always feel that way. The holidays can bring on some serious emotional crucibles — from tensions among family members, sadness over those who are no longer with us, even struggling to overcome our disappointment in decisions made by loved ones.
Maybe you think of your favorite Christmas TV specials as inspiring, celebratory fare that set the tone for the season. That’s certainly true – but so is the fact that just about every Yuletide classic we tune in to this time of year features about as many crucible moments as it does presents under the tree.
She set out on a quest to become the first woman to sail solo around Antartica. But 72 days in, when a horrific storm with waves as high as a two-story building caused her mast to topple and nearly sank her boat, Lisa Blair’s journey changed from setting a record to staying alive.
She’s known internationally as the first woman to sail solo around Antartica, a celebrated explorer who fought through unimaginable trials en route to setting her world record. But before she ever stepped foot off dry land, Lisa Blair was a shy, reserved Australian girl bullied at school. She headed off to university determined to shed the mask she wore in high school, and later learned the importance of viewing failure not as falling short, but not trying at all. She found her life’s calling when a sailing journey with a friend led her to fall in love with the sea … and the beauty and adventure it offers.
In more than 20 years of playing football, as an amateur and in the NFL, Jeff Kemp was only once earmarked as his team’s starting quarterback before the season began.
Life, Dom Brightmon freely admits, can be crappy sometimes. But each of us has the power to flip the switch to “happy” — the key is to view our crucible experiences as crystal experiences.
Moving beyond your crucible is hard work, even harder when the circumstances that knocked you off your feet seem to linger forever. How do you get going again when it feels like your crucible is a bottomless pit, a black hole?
Life can be exhausting. Certainly this year, 2020, has been exhausting. Between COVID-19 and the election in the U.S. and the strain it put on the national dialogue and personal relationships, who can’t wait for 2020 to be over? More generally, you may have been through a professional or personal crisis. You have been fired or lost your business. You may have lost a loved one, or someone you love may be battling an illness. When you feel the bottom of your crucible seems to never end, how do you keep going?
Her resume is wildly impressive: best-selling author, award-winning screenwriter, successful entrepreneur, celebrated fitness trainer and health activist — she even won Miss Congeniality at the Miss California USA pageant. But Kimberly Spencer’s accomplishments hid her demons — bulimia, trying to be who others wanted and expected her to be, a victim of emotional self-sabotage.
She baked her first batch of cookies in the California sun at age 3 — with mud as the secret ingredient. Ever since that day, Whitney Singletary-White has dreamed of being a baker, and she’s made that dream come true with her gourmet Nuttin’ Butter Cookies.
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