Crisis is an Opportunity for positive Change!
The unfortunate part of growing and becoming your best self and creating the life you love is the growing pains. Yes, indeed. I know you guys and gals over 40 have figured this out. Still, it’s an important message that we need to either learn or keep remembering. Obviously, with what has been going on lately this has a lot of people being challenged. People are being disconnected. Fears are coming up. The human condition will catastrophize and we can become complete basket cases. I speak from a lot of experience! Fortunately, having been tested so many times you start to get the lesson quicker. Which is that, “Life is a lesson.” The human experience can either teach you how strong you are or have you completely obsessed with how to control all the things that we cannot control and make yourself sick. Now, when I’m faced with challenges, depending on severity, I usually still have a minute😊. However, I intentionally sit back and ask myself, “What is the lesson in this?”. That will be different for everyone. However, the moment I ask myself that question immediately my mind goes into a more inquisitive place and stress decreases. This may be showing you that you need to take better care of yourself. Maybe you need to focus on issues that you’ve been avoiding. Maybe you realize that you are scared to be with yourself. Or is this the time to start the garden you always wanted or write the book you’ve always talked about? This could be a time that you discover needs that you have that you’ve been neglecting. The reality is that when there is a crisis there is always an opportunity to change - IF you have an attitude of curiosity and come from a place of how you can be a better person and be willing to change. One of the biggest offenders of stealing your peace is fears about what you cannot control. The ability to “surrender” what you can’t control is definitely a skill that isn’t easy. However, if you think about all the time and energy that is expended worrying about what you can’t control it takes away hours, days and weeks of your life that could be used to focus on what you desire in life - solutions, relationships, helping others, creativity, etc. Fear will literally steal your soul and keep you in a place of hell in your mind without any solution. Therefore, you are not really being able to be present with your loved ones, your work, art, solutions etc. We miss so much when we fill it with negativity and fears. I was told a story about a soldier during the Vietnam war that was given the job to watch for suspicious activity of a certain village. This soldier noticed a guy walking back and forth over the same area for hours every day. He could not understand what he was doing but he said he never saw anyone walk so beautifully. He later found out that this person was a monk who was doing a “walking meditation.” What the soldier found to be so beautiful was that with each repetitive step this person seemed fully emerged in the moment and it was as if each step was a new adventure. Buddhists call it “soft eyes.” I perceive it as looking at the world with the eyes of a child. I have been hiking in the same area for years but recently I have intentionally tried to fully emerge all of my senses with each step and I swear every time I see something new. So, when we live with so many stories in our head about all that can go wrong, remember you rob yourself of all that is right. So, the takeaway is to have a willing spirit, stay in the moment and stop trying to control what you cannot control because then the fears control you. One guarantee in life is that we will all die. We don’t know when, where or how but it will happen. So why waste my life here worrying about it? Good luck my friends! I’m practicing this everyday and lately it’s been more challenging but I’m having a good time!