Choosing joy: How 3 attributes of spiritual fitness help build resilience in the face of adversity

 

By: Howard Crosby Jr., Sergeant Major*

I love spending time with my family, I love riding my motorcycle, and I love building things and working on home projects. It’s easy to be happy when I’m doing the things I love. But happiness can come and go from one life event to another. Different events in my life can cause the emotional response of being happy, sad, angry, etc. However, one thing I’ve learned over the years is that “you can’t always choose what happens to you, but you can always choose how you react to it.” This is where choosing joy comes in.

But how is it possible to choose joy when something devastating happens in your life? The ability to choose joy comes from spiritual fitness and at least one of its three attributes: Service and Sacrifice for the Greater Good (SSGG), Pursuing Meaning, Purpose, and Values (PMPV), and for some, their Personal Connection to a Higher Power (PCHP). Since not everyone believes in a higher power, some might only have two attributes of spiritual fitness. In my life, I draw my strength primarily from the personal connection to a higher power as I learned from my mother, and am able to choose joy because of that.


Choosing joy in my mom’s battle with cancer

When my mom was pregnant with me, the doctors diagnosed her with breast cancer and gave her the choice to go on radiation and chemotherapy, or continue the pregnancy. Since I’m writing this, you can tell she chose to continue her pregnancy!

After a mastectomy, she went into remission for a while. However, when I was in middle school, she slipped on some ice and complained her neck hurt so she went to the doctors for tests. They discovered the cancer had spread to the vertebra in her neck, and when they did surgery to remove it, the bones were mush. After that, I spent my middle school and high school years watching my mother go in and out of the hospital for multiple surgeries, chemo, and radiation treatments. No matter what situation my mother found herself in, though, she almost always chose joy. The doctors even nicknamed her “Smiley”! The joy that radiated from her life was infectious to all those around her.

The one dominant core attribute of my mother’s spirituality was her personal connection to a higher power. She prayed and read scripture continually to strengthen her personal connection to a higher power. She prayed that God would give her the strength to see all her children graduate from high school, which she viewed as her purpose that tied to her meaning, purpose, and values. She used her time and energy to serve others—whether it was family, friends, the church, or the community—where we lived. She did that with the belief that God wanted her to serve those around her, which tied to her service and sacrifice for the greater good.

I only have one memory of her ever complaining—despite having her vertebra replaced with bone from her hip and fused, rods put in her neck, then longer rods put down her spine, then a plate attached to her skull connected to rods all the way down her back, and all the times she was in pain. That one complaint came when she was confined to a hospital bed that we had in our living room, and she was unable to get up to make her kids breakfast or lunches for school that day. She said she felt like a “basket case,” because she was unable to serve her family. That was it. No memory of complaints that “I hurt, I’m too tired, or my life is so hard.” She always chose joy.

After I, her youngest child, graduated from high school and went off to basic training and Advanced Individual Training (AIT), the cancer rapidly spread to her whole body. I received the Red Cross call two days before I was to graduate AIT that she was on hospice care and not expected to make it much longer. I flew home the next day, arriving late that night. The next morning, my sister and I went into her room to see her and hold her hand. She wasn’t responsive as she was in a coma, but my sister and I told her as we fought back tears that it was OK to go and meet her heavenly father, as her kids were all grown and she had completed her mission here on earth. We left her room to eat breakfast with the other family members who had come, and the hospice nurse showed up a few minutes later to let us know that she had passed.

How my mother’s faith lives on in me

While that was about 23 years ago in November of 1998, I still look back on my first 18 years of life to draw inspiration from how my mother chose to live her life. Her spiritual fitness was rooted in her PCHP that strengthened her PMPV and SSGG. So as life has thrown curve balls my way with injuries, family issues, job changes, and more, I try my imperfect best to be like her and choose joy in any situation. I choose joy by strengthening my connection to a higher power, reflecting on my meaning, purpose, and values, and taking the focus off myself with service and sacrifice for the greater good. I look for ways to practice gratitude and reflect on how I can learn and grow in the times life knocks me down. Looking back at this and other difficult times in my life—and seeing the good that has come from the bad times—helps me handle new challenges and try to choose joy in every situation. I look at happiness like a shiny cubic zirconia ring, which looks good at first, can easily lose its shine, and doesn’t hold any real value. However, joy is like a diamond that glows from within and has value no matter what the situation on the outside shows.

So, where do you draw your strength from? Evaluating yourself and your spiritual fitness through the lens of your personal belief structure can help you see where you are strong or areas for improvement—or both.
What are some things that you can be thankful for today? Continually practicing gratitude can help make it easier to choose joy, especially as you shift your focus from the bad things in life to what’s good.
How have the tough times in your life helped you learn and grow to be a better person? Reframing life’s tough times as opportunities for growth can help you develop and shift your focus from the bad to the possible good.
So while “you can’t always choose what happens to you, you can always choose how to react to it.” I hope that no matter what happens to you, you do what my mom did, and choose joy.


* The opinions and assertions expressed herein are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of USU or DoD. The contents of this publication are the sole responsibility of the author and do not reflect the views, opinions, or policies of The Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, Inc. Mention of trade names, commercial products, or organizations does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government. The author has no financial interests or relationships to disclose.