Phrases I can't abide. These are usually employed when something really bad happens to someone, which is pretty much any given day. So you hear these phrases uttered all the time, from all quarters.
"Everything happens for a reason." - No. I don't think so. I mean, yes, everything happens, and then we come up with reasons for "why" or "how" they happened. The "why" is almost always speculative. The "how" maybe a little less so. I hate this phrase because it implies that there is a reason for everything, and that everything is reasonable. Not everything is reasonable. Much of the universe is "unreasonable," even if we can come up with a chain of reasoning to explain things to ourselves. Much of what happens in our lives is baffling, strange, mysterious. Our reasoning is so paltry. We can reason with the bad shit that happens to us, but that doesn't mean the bad shit is reasonable. And we can't redeem all the bad shit that accumulates in our lives for reasonable coupons later!
"It will all work out for the best." - No. It probably won't. It will all work out. And we can do our best to deal with it, but that doesn't mean that will work out for the best. Yes, we can carry on in the face of adversity, in the eye of the horror, but often "the best," is not even in the equation. It will work out. Yes, so deal with that my little pretties.
"Everything is connected." - Actually, I love this one, and use it often. Everything is connected. That's the weird mystery and majesty of our lives. Sometimes the connections are obvious and visible to all, and sometimes (maybe more often) the connections are not obvious and not visible. I don't know if it helps us when we are trying to deal with bad shit in our lives, but this one seems true. Damn the torpedoes!