It’s normal to have an emotional reaction when you get “bad” news. When I heard that my brother had an accident while riding his bicycle, I immediately lost my mind. I went to the worst-case scenario. “What if he died?!”

In this instance, it was true.

One of my most favorite human beings, J.J., had died.

What? My healthy 42-year-old brother, who just last week I had watched play in a softball tournament playoff game? He had just fallen over dead while riding his bike during his normal 18-mile route?!

What the?! How—and why—could that be?

I decided right then and there that this was going to be the worst thing ever to happen in my life.

Now my life is going to suck. My parents are going to have sad hearts, and we’re all screwed. I’ll cry rivers of tears forever.

I literally contemplated jumping off a bridge.

Grief isn’t logical. I didn’t know how I was going to survive without the person who understood me most in the whole world.

I couldn’t imagine waterskiing, cooking, eating, drinking, laughing, traveling, or joking without him.

I didn’t know how to process this tragedy. I didn’t know what to do to not sink into a hole of an all-encompassing shit storm.

The only person I knew to call, Eva Gregory, was at a conference. My Inner Guidance said, “Call Robin.” Robin was Eva’s husband and not someone I normally poured my heart out to.

But I took action and called him. At first, he pissed me off. He kept asking me, “What do you want?”

He meant what do you want now, if you could have anything.

I said, “What I want, I can’t have. I want him to be alive!”

I couldn’t get this thought out of my head: This is the worst thing that has ever happened to me!

Then I paused.

What if this was the best thing that ever happened in my life?

Holy moly. How could I even think that thought?!

But…

What if I could use this experience to live more fully, peacefully, joyously, and in the moment?

What if I could connect with my brother daily and have his bright, uplifting perspective at my beck and call anytime I want?

What if I could accept this reality and stop resisting it?

What if I could look back at this time and say it was a positive turning point for me?

Man, that possibility began to turn this tragedy into an opportunity. I’m not saying I immediately dropped all my sad thoughts.

They came fast and furious. But… with some attention to the possibility of this being a catalyst for a better life, I was open to this new perspective.

I’ve always believed that you can change your life when you shift your perspective. It’s a very active process. When it comes to this type of shift, you don’t decide that it’ll happen and then everything falls together in an instant.

It was a process.

The shift is reliant upon refocusing your thoughts many times a day. Sometimes, hundreds of times a day.

This inner work is not for the faint of heart (pun not intended). It takes a lot of energy, but the payoff is worth it.

Within a year, I was living a totally different life. I was saying “Yes!” to more of the things I really wanted… and being grateful for all that I had instead of what I was missing.

This experience taught me that you can turn any negative circumstance into fuel for living your best life ever.