If you are suffering and going through a difficult time, it will not last forever. I remember how I felt after a bad breakup: I thought that I wouldn’t be able to sleep again. My brain kept racing, and I realized that I had lost the person that I loved forever.

Forever.

That feeling of permanence hurt any time I thought about the loss.

All of us will feel this pain at some point in our lives. A breakup, losing a job, the passing away of a loved one, or mourning a way of life.

I’ve written about James Stockdale before, but I came across him again in this “How to keep hope in bleak circumstances” article.

Stockdale was a prisoner during the Vietnam war. He suffered through torture and saw many of his fellow prisoners die, but he found a way to survive and live on past through his experience.

What helped him survive?

He held two ideas in his mind:

• He would continue to be a prisoner and to suffer in the short term.

• But he knew that one day that he would survive and be let go.

He accepted his present circumstances, but also focused on hope for the future. He held those two conflicting ideas in his mind (not knowing when he would be free, yet somehow he would be let go).

If you’re suffering now due to any number of things, it’s extremely difficult to see past the next few months. After the breakup, it took more about a year to feel normal again. When my grandparents and father-in-law all passed away within a few months of each other, it took me a long time to live through the grief.

I didn’t know how long I would feel sad and be upset, but I knew that I would eventually find a way to incorporate the good memories that I had of those I loved into my live.

When you are suffering, take time to read James Stockdale’s story as it will not only give you hope, but be a path forward for you.