Posts tagged Five Steps
Rise Above Negative Circumstances
Sep 22nd
When negative circumstances strike, we can view these trials as permanent and damaging events, or we can view them as teachers and challengers – leading us to growth and a new level of understanding.? Instead of identifying with the victim role, realize that you can create your life by choosing how you respond to your circumstances.?
First of all, let’s understand the difference between victimization and victimhood. Every person has experienced some form of victimization at some point in life. Perhaps a spouse betrays our trust, a loved one treats us poorly, a child rebels and makes poor choices that drastically effect our lives. Currently, we all may feel victimized by a difficult economy, job loss, or loss of our home. We may have been victimized by these situations, but whether we continue to live as victims (“victimhood”) is our choice.
Rather than living out of victimhood, we can choose to co-create our lives with our Creator (Big “C”).? We co-create our lives with God when we actively participate in moving through our emotions with God’s help and choosing our responses, our behaviors, our words, and our thoughts. When we shift into seeing our selves as co-creators with God, we begin to re-discover our true, more authentic self. God created us to create – we create mindsets, ideas, opportunities, inventions, we pro-create.? God did not intend for us to merely react our way through life, letting life shape us.? We can shape our life despite circumstances that are outside of our control.
The Creator put us on this earth with plans and purposes that are unique to us as individuals. We can trust God to complete the good work He has started in us, if we will live in a state of faith and hope. If we look at our trials and tribulations as painful bumps in the road that cause growth and understanding, then we can choose to continue our journey through life with more tools, more depth of awareness, and a stronger relationship with God.
Here are five steps to take, to help you move forward through life-challenges.
1. Monitor your thoughts about your circumstances, and choose to think thoughts that reflect the concept that challenges are teachers and tools to strengthen you. If your thoughts sound negative – stop them, switch them out, and as you speak the new thought (both out loud and in your mind) really try to let that new, more positive thought empower your whole mind-body system to move forward and to grow.
2. Pray. Talk to God about what you are feeling, thinking, and ask Him for help to change your beliefs about your challenging circumstances.
3. Draw. Paint. Sing. Dance. Get creative and get those right-brained juices flowing – this allows you to pull your thoughts and emotions into the present moment and away from the past and the future (where anxiety lives).
4. Write out one or two ways your difficult circumstances can teach you something new or help you to develop an emotional muscle that hasn’t been as strong as you would have liked.
5. Take action. Try a new approach to the situation, or ask someone for help. Picture yourself literally getting up, brushing yourself off, and moving forward as you find new ways of being in the world. Begin the process of creating a new you and new life choices.
Instead of identifying with the victim role, choose to think thoughts that say, “I will choose to step out in faith and believe that I will grow, improve, and gain more understanding as a result of this challenge.” Choose to talk to yourself about the fact that you have creative abilities to shape your own thoughts and perspectives. We can literally choose to see the glass half-full and make choices based upon this glass half-full mentality.
In addition to the above-mentioned tips, consider that counseling or coaching may be a very effective form of support while you learn to address your negative circumstances with new attitudes and choices.? The objectivity of a therapist or coach might be just the right thing to help you see your circumstances in a new light and help you re-discover joy in the process.
Five Steps to Enjoying the Journey
Sep 9th
When I was a child, I had a recurring dream in which I was leaping from the top of one pillar to another and each pillar started to fall the moment I landed on it, so I had to keep leaping.
As an adult, this is the way I’ve lived my life – leaping from one accomplishment to another – degrees, accreditation, various different careers. My mother used to say it made her tired just listening to me, because I was always pursuing new challenges.
But it struck me one day when I was saying to her, “I can’t wait ’til I finish this program and get my certification” and she said “Don’t wish your life away!” She was so right! I was failing to enjoy the journey.
I also realized how different my husband’s attitude is! To him, life is a “walk in the woods”. He truly enjoys the moment. When we went to England to do our PhD’s, I was always working hard and focused on the goal, while he simply enjoyed the process itself. To him, the goal was incidental but not that important. He was simply enjoying the research he was involved in.
This difference in attitude was even more evident when we returned from England and searched for employment. For six months, I was frantic and impatient, while my husband enjoyed our little ‘vacation’. He said “Relax and enjoy this time. Before you know it, we’ll be back in the grind, with very little time off.”
We have both accomplished many things in our lives, but I lived in a state of “gotta get THERE” and he lived in the state “Isn’t THIS amazing”.
So many people live all their lives, waiting for the future. You hear them say “when I graduate…”, “when I have a family…”, “when the kids are grown up…”, “when I retire…”. Life happens but we’re not there.
Here are five steps that may help you to live and enjoy life fully in the present:
Take responsibility for where you are now. Some people say “Well I have to provide for my children”, but you decided to have children and you did that for a reason! So your next choice is to decide HOW to provide for them. No matter what limiting beliefs you have, you DO have choices about where to go next. Set your next goal, creatively finding a way to achieve a joyful life, while fulfilling your responsibilities. This requires: introspection (to find what makes your heart sing), research (to investigate the possibilities) and courageous leaps of imagination (to overcome limiting beliefs about what is possible). Focus on the moment and savor the journey. As my mother said, “Don’t wish your life away”. Appreciate what you have now and find the joy in every moment. If your children are little, take a moment to appreciate them, because when they grow up and leave home, you will miss these times. So don’t miss it now! Welcome challenges and failures as skill-building opportunities. Challenges help us to get creative. Sometimes you will seek out a mentor. These experiences will also help you to become a mentor to others. All the best teachers tell us about their challenges and failures because these were the times when they learned the most. Remain flexible. If at some point, you feel that this is not the direction you want to go, allow yourself to reconsider and modify your goal to something that truly inspires and energizes you. I have changed careers many times in my life and everyone thought I was crazy, but what others think does not matter – as long as you follow your heart, you can never go wrong.”Enjoying the journey” does not mean “not planning”. It means planning with both your heart and your mind and then immersing yourself in the journey with all your heart, learning and changing direction as you go, accepting all the ups and downs and always moving in the direction of your joy.
