Richelle Hofer

LESSONS FROM THE DESERT OF MY LIFE

I believe that sharing our stories and our experiences in a vulnerable way is the most powerful thing we can do for ourselves and for each other.  

If there is one thing I have learned after 17 years in the financial industry it’s that the numbers on your financial statements are a representation of wealth that is far greater than dollars and cents.  

Our worth is so much more than numbers on a financial statement.

Our portfolios are built from experiences, from discipline, they’re built out of the successes we’ve had in life, the battles that were hard fought, the lessons that were learned the hard way and sometimes the deep sorrow of a loved one gone too soon.  

Listening to people share their stories has been one of the greatest privileges of my career as a financial advisor.   

There is nothing more refreshing to my soul than sharing my life with people of authenticity. 

This past year I’ve taken some time to peer into my soul and to ask myself “What I am I learning, how am I building my ‘non-financial portfolio’ and how will I share it with the next generation?”

As I look back at my life there were four periods of time where I thought “this is it.  This is the end.  I can’t go through this.”

As I look back at my life there were four periods of time where I thought “this is it.  This is the end.  I can’t go through this.” But I found a path forward.

The first was in the 6th grade… long before the “Me Too” movement.  I wrestled with a secret and felt desperate for an end to my internal pain.  The second was when my family fell apart after my parents divorced.  The third was when my dad died – unexpectedly at 60 years old – before we had fully mended our relationship.  The fourth was just this past year. 

If I had to boil the lessons of these times down to a few fundamental things that got me through, it comes down to this:

1. It is not for the sake of the offender that we forgive.  It is for the sake of our own souls.  Forgiveness is the process of healing and restoring.  Forgiveness is the hardest and most profound concept we will ever wrestle with.  When we let unforgiveness take root in our hearts, hate grows.  And hating someone is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.  Forgiveness is not a natural or easy thing.  I have found that the only way for me to truly forgive is to ask for help from God.  

2. Just do the next right thing.  When we are standing in the middle of a mess it can feel so overwhelming.  You think to yourself “how can I possibly sort through all of this hurt/betrayal/etc.?”  The mountain in front of you looks impossible to climb – and maybe it is… but progress is made by just taking the next right step.  Just do the next right thing.  

3. Do not lose site of who you are.  Perhaps the most difficult thing about all four of my “desert” moments was that I started to question if what happened to me had changed who I was.  We get to choose IF the situation is going to change us and we get to choose HOW it’s going to change us.  But we have to get intentional about those choices.  If I want to come out on the other side a better person then I have to “take every thought captive”.  Pay attention to the scripts that you rehearse in your head and say “is this me? Is this who I want to be?”  Often in the face of struggle the scripts that play are not healthy.  We have to change the script.  Don’t lose site of who you are.

4. Don’t let anyone cause you to act in a way that is inconsistent with your core values.  Nothing causes our inner being more stress than when we are acting in a way that doesn’t line up with our personal convictions.  When we find ourselves in that position we must do everything we can to get ourselves back in alignment with our values. 

5. And last, bend up, not in. When our hearts are wounded we instinctively want to bend in to protect ourselves. We bend in and we retreat. We cut ourselves off from people. We make every effort to conceal our wounds to avoid being hurt again, but bending in makes the hurt worse. Like an infected wound we fester. The pain gets worse and the worse it gets the more unthinkable it seems to expose our hurts. When we feel the instinct to bend in, we must throw open our arms, throw back our heads and expose our hearts to God. We must bend up, not in.