Life Happens!
I would like to share one of my favourite
quote from Marianne Williamson: “The truth will set you free, but first it will
piss you off”
Early last December, I attended a workshop
in Boca Raton Florida with Tony Robbins called Date with Destiny. Now, before you think this was a leisurely
personal growth vacation in the sun, allow me to clarify. The retreat lasted five days. Our days began at 10:00 a.m., and ended the
following morning between 2 - 3 a.m. On
a couple of mornings, we even had homework!
It was actually the first time in my life
that I paid such a huge fee for a resort and was not able to enjoy any of the
many amenities. Oh wait; on the day of my arrival, I did enjoy one of their many
daily free perks, afternoon champagne! There I was on a sunny Monday afternoon,
sitting by the pool with the understanding that “this was the life!” By early Wednesday morning, as I walked back
to my hotel room at 2:30 a.m., I understood that this would not be a vacation.
Although there is so much I learned from
this five-day retreat, one concept I would like to share with you is how one
can choose to view one’s life happenings, experiences.
According to Tony, when it come to “life
happenings” there are two ways that we can view our experiences. Whichever one you choose, will determine the
type of life you are presently experiencing. Those two are:
·
Life
is happening to me; or
·
Life
is happening for me
Let us look
at the first concept - Life happening to
me:
When we look at life happening to me, rarely do we take the time to
look at ourselves as a possible cause of our situation. It is so easy to fall into the category of
being a victim of life circumstances. We
are surrounded by events that appear to be totally out of our control. And if by chance we have a bit of control, we
are certain someone else messed it up.
When we have a tendency to focus on the
outside world, we feel totally out of control. Our locus of control is placed on the
exterior, as opposed to the interior. In
other words, we have very little influence on our behaviour. Everything appears to be out of our control
providing us with a wonderful excuse for the way our life is. “It’s really not my fault things are the way
they are … it’s their fault” … “if only he or she wasn’t like that!”
Of course, I could conveniently blame my
parents for the way my life is. I am a
child of the 60’s and back then my parents did the best they could with the
knowledge that was given to them. Today,
we do have many options … but are we conscious of them?
Most of us tend to go through life with
our “personal awareness” nicely filed in the back of our mind, coasting along until
the moment we are jolted, usually from a painful experience. We then pull out our awareness and evaluate
the situation. We quickly process the
experience via some form of anger, caused by someone or something else, and
file the experience in the category “they messed up” or “they caused me to act
this way.” Sometimes, we will even go as
far as admitting that “I messed up”, file it away and hope to never do that
again. Oh, and let us not forget the
name calling that usually follows the “I messed up!” - “Gosh, I’m so stupid,
what the heck was I thinking?”
The jolt back to reality is most always
because of someone else and once we have worked through the anger, we file our
awareness, yet again, in the back of our mind, until the next jolt. And of course, in no time are we jolted back.
In the category of life happening to me, when we are presented with a
painful event in our life, a problem/drama, we have a variety of choices that
will allow us to cope with the situation.
We can - Blame others and/or our self for
what went wrong, and/or we can choose to ignore it. When we blame or ignore the issue, it places
us in the reaction category. We are
reacting to the situation. Because we
are programmed/hardwired for survival, we will first look for the worse in a
situation. Survival is dependent on quickly
noticing irregularities, danger, so that you can either fight or flee. Unless we become conscious of our behaviour,
we will be in reactive mode. When you
blame someone or an event you take the responsible for what’s going on in your
life and place it on something else (Robbins).
When you ignore the situation, it only gets worse. Problems do not go away because you refuse to
look at them.
Another way some of us cope is by Numbing.
We numb by shopping, the use of alcohol,
drugs and food. A more modern numbing is
spending endless hours on the Internet, Facebooking. The problem with numbing is that you cannot
selectively numb, when you numb pain you also numb joy (Brown). Another form of coping is to isolate, remove
our self from the world, the situation. We
go into hiding until everything settles, hoping no one will remember.
When you are in the life is happening to me category you are offering
resistance and it is important to remember that resistance keeps us in our own
little world, reality, separate and alone.
This category tricks us into believing that we are protecting ourselves
from pain, allowing us to avoid the truth about our self (Ford 49). Blaming, ignoring, isolating and numbing will
never bring you peace. It only creates a
resistance to what is, keeping you from growing and moving forward in your life
in a healthy way. Unless you are willing
to look at your self and your life, you will repeat the same scenario over and
over - same box just a different packaging. So how do we get out of this vicious circle
and actually stop the pattern? One way
we can do that is by looking at what occurs in our life from a different
perspective.
What if we chose to view life as happening
for me? To look at life as happening for me, is to look for opportunities to
change aspects of our self, to grow. It
places the responsibility on us, thus providing us with control.
One method to take back control is by
asking empowering questions, questions that will allow us to see what happened
from a different perspective. Questions
such as:
·
How
can I cope with this situation in a way that will be best for myself and/or my
family or others around me?
·
What
is this situation trying to tell me?
·
What
can I learn from this situation?
·
What
responsibility do I have in this situation? Now there’s a loaded question!
The questions we ask ourselves help shape
our perception of who we are, what we are capable and willing to do. (Robbins,
p191) Our life reflects the type of
questions we ask. Ask dis-empowering
questions, get disempowering answers and in turn become disempowered.
When I left the retreat that morning, my
head was buzzing. I was certain that I
was one of those “enlightened” people who lived by the “life is happening for me” concept. Seriously, I am a seeker of knowledge who
considers her self somewhat well read. I
have hours of therapy and spiritual retreats under my belt! Ha, yea right! It didn’t take long for me to see how I
approached life happenings! As Tony
would say “challenges are but a worthy opponent!”
As a matter of fact, this sermon became a
recent reminder to change my perspective and see how I could improve! All of a sudden, insecurities began to rear
its ugly head. Disempowering questions
began to surface, “Am I good enough for this task?” - “Will I be able to meet
other people’s standards/expectations?” – “What if I make a total fool of
myself?” seriously “Do I even have enough knowledge, experience to even talk
about this subject? I haven’t even perfected it yet!” and the biggest disempowering question - “Who do I think you are to even think you could do this?”
The insecurities that were surfacing really
had nothing to do with anyone, although I was happy at first to place the blame
on someone else. With a change in
perspective, the challenges became a gift for me to work on my insecurities and
I am thankful for the gift.
Conclusion
When we choose to view life as happening to me, we place ourselves in the
“victim” perspective. There is a sense
of powerlessness that comes from something happening to you. Everything outside of us has the power to
change our mood, change our plans not to mention frustrate us to no end.
As a victim of our circumstance, we have
the opportunity to blame what is happening on outside forces, “I can’t believe
this is happening! - It’s not my fault” and on and on we can justify our life challenges
as happening due to outside circumstances. There is also this undertone that if life is
happening to us, perhaps life is
also against us. To blame an event, and
or a person allows us to preserve an identity that shields us from our true
self, shields us from the truth of what is. (Robbins)
When we choose to look at life from the
perspective of “happening for me”,
all of a sudden, we have control over how we will choose to view the situation
and in turn, how we will respond. We are
not reacting but choosing a response and are no longer a victim of
circumstances. We become willing to
honestly look at our self and our preconceived ideas about the situation, and
in turn, make the necessary adjustments and or changes in our self.
Our brain is not designed to make us happy;
it is designed for survival and will always look for what’s wrong. However, we have the ability to reframe a
situation and not allow the fight or flight mode to kick in.
For me, life is about personal development,
striving to be the best I can be. Our
biggest problem about our beliefs … is that we believe them. Therefore, be flexible and willing to change
and or adjust to a better you. The
quality of your life is correlated to the quality of your beliefs.
When an obstacle presents itself and we choose
to approach it from “life happens for
me,” the obstacle becomes merely a nudge to look at various ways to deal with
the situation. It is providing us with
an opportunity to take a detour that could be more beneficial to us. In other words, that which stands in our way
is but a challenge to take a different route, acquire a new learning.
Transformation occurs when you start
looking at the stories you tell your self. Those stories are also how you decide to view “life
happenings”. Until you seek to find and
embrace the gift of any situation or problem, it continues to re-occur
presenting itself in a different package (Ford 8)
Beliefs have the power to create and the
power to destroy. The only difference
between a “problem” and a “gift” is the meaning you give it. Therefore, take control of the meaning, of the
way you look at the situation, and out of your deepest pain will come your
greatest gift.
And please, be gentle with yourself and
remember what Marianne said, “the truth will set you free, but first it will
piss you off!”
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Thank you for your kind words!