In Episode 57 of the 1life podcast, Behka White discusses how to process negative experiences in a healthy way. She shares a personal story about a traumatic bunny birthing experience her family had, emphasizing the importance of learning from such events rather than being bound by them. Behka then introduces three-step process for processing negative experiences.
Behka applies this tool to the bunny birthing story and encourages listeners to use it to transform their own negative experiences into valuable learning opportunities. The episode concludes with an invitation to explore a negative experience and transform it into something that serves our path to a better life.
Welcome to the One Life podcast with Becca White. This is episode 57 transforming negative experiences. Years ago we had a couple of baby bunnies. My kids loved them. One was named Pearl and we'll call the other one Jack. We couldn't tell if they were male or female but eventually one looked to be getting a little fat. As a family we researched the bunny birthing process and prepared ourselves just in case. I wasn't home when Pearl went into labor and our sweet young daughters were so concerned about Jack eating the babies as our research indicated might happen that they brought Pearl inside into their bedroom where the babies would be safe. When I got home I walked into their bedroom and Pearl was hiding under the bed. Things looked pretty gruesome. The baby bunnies were crawling across the room all in different directions searching for their mama's warmth and milk. Pearl was completely traumatized and doing nothing to gather her babies. So we gathered the babies and Pearl and put them back into their cage outside and we removed Jack. We watched and hoped. Pearl never bonded with her babies. She didn't keep them warm and she didn't feed them and all of the baby bunnies died. We were devastated. For the rest of her life Pearl remained traumatized. She huddled in the corner of her cage away from Jack and no longer enjoyed being held by the kids. Now this was truly a tragedy. Of course my daughters felt responsible for the baby bunnies dying. When we have negative experiences it is important that we process them in a way that we can learn from them instead of being bound by them. When I say being bound by our experiences I mean that we develop false beliefs about ourselves and about the world. Children especially are magical thinkers which means that their brains will make incorrect assumptions and conclusions about their experiences. So one of my daughters might come up with something like I am an animal killer. So processing our experiences is vital to avoid false beliefs. We can do this by taking the time to answer three simple questions. First question what went well? The second question what didn't go well? And last question next time what will I do differently? So if I went through this experience with my daughters it might look something like this. What went well? First of all we researched bunny birthing. Jack did not eat the babies. The girls acted in their very best judgment to protect the baby bunnies and we learned about the circle of life. What didn't go well? We didn't know for sure if the bunny was pregnant. We didn't have a way prepared to safely separate the bunnies and removing the mama bunny from her home traumatized her and Pearl did not take care of the babies and they died. Next time what would we do differently? When we suspected the mama bunny was pregnant we would have separated the two bunnies into separate cages close by one another. Going through this exercise with my girls helps them to see that they are not bad and they actually acted pretty bravely. It also gave them some wisdom and confidence concerning what to do when they encounter this or something like it in the future. We do not need to be bound by false beliefs about ourselves or the world. Today's invitation is to explore one of your negative experiences and ask yourself what went well? What didn't go well? And next time what will I do differently? See if you can transform your experience into wisdom and confidence that serve you on your path of your best life. Have a great day!
