Therapist and author George W. Burns, in his book, 101 Healing Stories, tells of the time he and his friend, Tom, traveled to Mt. Everest by yak. The story shows us that no matter what life has given us we can use it for our good.

In the small Tibetan town of Tingri, Tom and I had hired yaks and yak handlers for our journey to Mt. Everest. Chomolongma, of Mother Goddess, (as the world’s highest mountain is known to the Tibetans) lies several days trek across the stony and arid Tibetan plateau. To the south of us lay the snowy white peaks of the Himalaya, stretching high into clear and rich blue skies. Like a tall fence, these mountains that border the plateau shelter it from the moisture-laden clouds of the Indian monsoons and thus form the world’s highest desert. Not a tree or bush can be seen. The only vegetation is low, coarse tufts of occasional grass that fight for survival on the rocky terrain. The only animal that seems to survive is the yak, and only the yak’s capacity to manage these desolate, high-altitude areas enables humans to survive alongside them.

For the Tibetans, yaks are transport, clothing, food, fuel, and, indeed, life itself. Their wool is knitted into apparel and tents to stave off the bitter cold. Their hides make jackets, boots, and bed-clothes. Their meat, combined with ground, roasted barley, called tsampa, provides Tibetan’ staple diet. Yak milk churns into a rancid-tasting bitter which, when blended with tea and salt, makes a nutritious,cold-climate beverage. No product of the yak is wasted. Even its dung is used. On the treeless plateau there is no wood to burn for heating or cooking–and both are essential at these chilly altitudes. The Tibetans found an innovative solution. They gather the yak dung, mix it into watery pats, throw it onto the walls of their stone homes, and leave it to dry. These dung discs are subsequently stacked on the flat roofs of the houses, awaiting their use as fuel to warm the home and cook the food.

As Tom and I share the hospitality of a yak herder on the plateau one evening, we sat in his yak wool tent, sipped yak butter tea and choked on the smoke of a somewhat green yak dung fire. Despite the smoke we huddled close to it for the warmth. It was better than no fire, and as I sat there, I was filled with admiration. “What a resourceful people,” I thought to myself.” When life gives them nothing but shit, they can turn even that into something useful!”

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That, my friends, is the challenge of rising from the dung heap of sexual abuse, dissociative identity disorder, or other trauma. When life has given us nothing but shit, we must turn it into something useful!