Monthly Archives: July 2021

21

The Flaw

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Searching for Biggest Weakness

helen keller overcome
Do Not Be Afraid To Try To Be A Better Person!

How often do you look at yourself and honestly evaluate the most significant weakness? The honesty and emotions that are raised by this sort of inquiry are not dismissed lightly. I recently searched my life to identify my biggest weakness.

There are probably many people who know me would think of, and some who don’t know me could come up with a lot more.  I never claimed to be perfect, but when it comes down to my absolute biggest weakness, it is the fact that I have cared way too much about what other people thought about me. 

Always Been the Case

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Appearances are just thoughts, and thoughts are nothing unless you give them meaning!

Some of my earliest memories are of being shy and worrying about what other kids thought about my clothes and the things that I was doing.  Even though I was lucky enough to attend a school with supportive kids who never unearthed my fear, I still carried it deep inside.  As I grew up, this fear made its presence known every day.  I was incredibly self-conscious in high school (I know, who isn’t), but to the point where I was looking to fit in, ANYWHERE!  I was an athlete, so most of my friends came from the teams I was a part of.  They were great people, and I believe today would have liked me anyway, but then I felt like I had to maintain an image. Protection over who I was so that I could never be criticized or, in a more profound sense, rejected.

This continued throughout my adult life, the pattern of only allowing people in my life a few glimpses of who I was and keeping the rest locked away, for only me.  Yes, I was friendly, and I got along just fine, but nobody, and I means nobody, ever really saw the real me.  I was too worried I was not good enough. This is the source of my programming, throughout life, and something I have had to notice and overcome.

Unmasked

Finally, after years of living what should have been an enjoyable life, I reached two conclusions that were irrefutable and hard to avoid.  I didn’t like my job, and I didn’t like the person I was very much either.  That realization made me question a few things.

Why did I not like myself?  This perplexed me, and as I thought about it, it wasn’t me I didn’t like but the life I was living.  I was very self-centered and selfish. Everything I did was for me and me alone. There was no actual service, no real giving, no real opportunity to be me because I was too worried about what people thought about me. I was far from the person I was, and life provided little absolute joy without the expression of my true self.

My job? I should have loved it, I was teaching school, but I started to dislike all of the rules and petty inconveniences of that particular profession.  It is like trying to live your life in a fishbowl. For me, I was constantly on my guard.  I could never just be myself.  People seemed to criticize everything, and I tried to stay under the radar and out of the way. Eventually, that became impossible. I was not born to live under the radar, and our true self will find a way to come out if we don’t look to express it.

So Who Am I?

Let it become yours!
Let it become yours!

Can anyone answer this?  It is often easier to define who you are not.  You are not your job.  You are not what people think of you.  You are not what you feel about yourself.  You are not your relationships: father, mother, sister, brother, friend.  So I am none of those things, and the labels don’t matter.

I am a person who cares about others and wants everyone to recognize the unique talents they have within them and use them to enhance their own lives and the lives of those they come in contact with. That includes me.

So Now What?

Now I am exposed, and that is who I am.  I will try to live up to who I am as best I can so that I can hold my head up and face myself.  Because in the end, it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks of you. It matters what you feel about yourself.  Everybody else will have to make that judgment for themselves.  My advice to you and me is:

– Don’t hide who you are because it is who you were made to be, and nobody else can do the job anyway.

–Don’t care what anyone thinks about you because their criticisms only come from jealousy, envy, or fear.  Love them because they are where you used to be.

–Follow your passion into whatever realm it leads you. Whatever you are drawn to that makes you feel whole, go there, do that thing!

Consider my biggest weakness, exposed, dissected, and dismissed. To all those who judge:  “There are many things that people do happily that I can’t imagine why they would do it… But I have to say that even though I am critical or judgmental of society at large, I’m not critical of people individually. We are who we are. “
Ian MacKaye

It is funny in an odd way how fear determined so many of my actions when if we are totally honest about ourselves and our motives, everybody is terrified of something most of the time, and it determines most of our actions.

21

Mindless Thought

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It is amazing to me how much time we spend thinking. Thinking about this and that all day long, a constant barrage of thought flowing through our minds.  Yet all of this thought production can be distracting and counterproductive if you never choose to look closely at them and see what these thoughts are or what they mean.  The funny part is that we all think our minds, and our thoughts define us. But they don’t. They are just something we produce, not who we are.  The goal for me is to disidentify with the mind and the wild swirling eddy of thought and focus on the person looking at them.  A lot is going on in your head and to become the watcher of the thoughts you are producing is quite an achievement.

Use the Tool

A mind is a tool. It has great power to remember, create, problem solve and even run our bodies. But it isn’t who we are, any more than a helpful garden tool is us. It is a valuable tool we can use to create things, to make decisions, and the mind is the biggest factor determining what we accomplish in this life.  Learning to use the tool we have and not identify with who we are is the trick.  Our educational system does not guide how to do this, and most information we are exposed to makes no differentiation between yourself and your mind.  But they are definitely two different entities.

Take a moment and look at your thoughts without judgment. Take five minutes and type whatever you are thinking without any filter or judgment. Then analyze what you are thinking about. If you are the mind, how can you sit back and listen? Something is creating these thoughts, but it isn’t you.  Our thoughts come from a combination of our experiences and new stimuli that enter our lives.  Most often, our mind tells stories based on faulty programming and half-truths based on manipulations of others. If you write your honest thoughts down for five minutes, you will know where your thoughts are coming from.  And with real evaluation, you can trace them to their origin.  Then you can choose if this is a thought you really want to entertain or not. That is becoming conscious, and the choice very few people have made.  Rather than use this tool, the tool uses us and moves our lives along the conveyer belt of life as if we are on autopilot.

Think Where it Matters

Lots of thoughts we have about ourselves are extremely negative. We speak to ourselves in a manner we wouldn’t tolerate from anyone else. Our perceived shortcomings, failures, or personal lack are magnified, and if you listen, there will be words spoken in your mind that are unhealthy and mean.  Thoughts about our physical appearance or personal worth on the negative need to be identified and released. The person who most needs your kindness and understanding is you.  I have known people who go out of their way to be kind and give to everyone else, but they are overly critical and mean when it comes to them. This is obviously a problem with self-esteem and personal achievement. If you deep down think you aren’t as smart, talented, or deserving as everyone else, how can you ever become successful?  You can’t.  You are defeating yourself.

We too often let our imaginations negatively run our lives.  We spend time lost in the past, full of pleasant victories or devastating defeats. We color the past how we want and time spent there takes you away from spending time in the only place that matters.  The same can be said of the future. The future will happen whether we think of it or not. There is nothing wrong with planning. That is responsible, but worrying about everything that might happen is a fool’s errand. It is paying money for a debt that most likely will never exist. And if it does enter your life, it won’t be any easier to deal with.  Time spent thinking in the future takes you away from spending time in the only place that matters.  Where is this place?  Where does it matter?  That is the now. This moment. That is all we are ever promised and all we ever have.

Living in the Moment

Becoming intensely conscious of the moment is a difficult practice. Even the most diligent person is going to find their mind drifting off into other places.  The goal is to develop the instrument of the mind so that it can still be used for thinking of practical purposes, using it for discovering the best way to do things or create new things or become the best at something that you can. But to eliminate the involuntary deluge of negative dialogue that is unnecessary, unhealthy, and a waste of time.

Spend an entire day noticing your thoughts. When they inevitably drift out of the moment, and you notice it, you are back in the moment automatically.  This will allow you to look at how often you spend your time thinking about this moment and how much you spend in the traps of the past and the future.  Returning to the now continually allows you to live in the moment, which is the only reality there is. If you are at work, be there. If you are at the beach, be there. If you are at the gym, be there.  Developing this skill will allow you to become a watcher of your mind and put you in charge of the tool. This is a power that will allow you to get out of the way of your thought stream and use your mind to create, solve problems and enjoy your life. What more could you want?

“Life is like a game of chess. To win, you have to make a move. Knowing which move to make comes with IN-SIGHT and knowledge and learning the lessons accumulated along the way. We become every piece within the game called life!”

“Much more surprising things can happen to anyone who, when a disagreeable or discouraged thought comes into his mind, has the sense to remember in time and push it out by putting in an agreeable, determinedly courageous one. Two things cannot be in one place.”

“The beginning of wisdom is the definition of terms.” ― Socrates

“Never underestimate the power of thought; it is the greatest path to discovery.” ― Idowu Koyenikan

21

HOW’S YOUR CAREER

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How do you handle the demands of your career?

One of the things we all must navigate in life is our work/life balance.  We live in a society where work is a must to live because we all need money.  But work doesn’t have to be a boring, difficult task that we hate.   Confucius advised,  choose a job you love, and you will never work a day in your life. The Secret is to find what you are passionate about and do that to earn money.

Many people will argue that this can’t happen because you can’t make money following your dream.  However, those people never looked for or found their passion, so they see it as impossible.  It isn’t, and if you set your goal for finding that type of job, right for you. You will.  It begins by honestly looking at your thoughts, words, and actions and identifying what makes you come alive on the inside. Then find a way to make money incorporating that into your life.  Or you can work at something mind-numbing, life-ending, boring, and defeating.  It is your choice.

Finding Passion

Finding our passion seems like a daunting task, but it really isn’t when you pay attention to how you feel. Most men are taught to keep their feelings at arm’s length and act.  The problems arise when you realize that you are a human and have emotions that need to be dealt with actively or deal with them passively.  This means that what your feeling will get

your attention eventually, you can pay attention and acknowledge emotional responses or be the victim of them through uncontrollable outbursts or even physical illness.

A passion is something that you do that makes you lose track of time.  You find a focus, and all other things drift away, and you are creating something new.  Creativity is the fuel for all human activity. When you are creating, you are unique, growing, and being vital to the world.  Creativity brings passion to things and allows your personality to show through.  Work at something like this, and it will be amazing. Work at something opposite of this, and it will feel like a prison sentence.

Attitude is the Key

When we look at any job we choose to do, success or failure will be determined by the attitude we have when performing this task.  Your ability will certainly allow you to perform adequately or not. But your attitude will allow those skills to rise to the surface.  Being positive is the only attitude to real success.  Nothing good was ever created through negativity. That is a fact. If you are spending all your time complaining, you allow the victim mentality to take control.  You give all your power to the problem.

Whereas being positive about things will allow growth to be possible, and your choices will give you power. There are always three choices to every situation, accept it, change it, or leave it.  A positive attitude will allow you to see all of these options more clearly.  Enjoy the little things that your job entails. There must be something that you like, or you should really be doing something else.  Focus on these positives and ignore all of the negatives.  Positive attitudes at work allow you to be your best and others to be their best as well.

Work and Grow

Work is an inevitable part of life. It provides a purpose, develops skills, and can be of value to society. We should all look for jobs that resonate with us. Not just for the money we make, but for the enjoyment they bring to our soul.  If this is a foreign concept to you, then you need to seek a new job.  To work at something you despise is a version of torture nobody should endure.  When you see your situation as limited with no other options, you are trapped. No human works at their best in this situation.  Seek the freedom of doing what you have a passion for and see what a life of enjoyment is like.  It is possible to be financially secure and enjoy what you do.  It all begins with a focus on your thoughts, words, and actions when it comes to work today.

“Be so good they can’t ignore you.”

“We rise by lifting others.”

This song by Huey Lewis reminds me of being in high school and college and the many jobs I had back then. Work is an interesting part of life.  I’m taking what their giving ’cause I’m Working for a livin’.

 

21

Wounds

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Time Heals All Wounds by Kalyn LeBlanc
Artwork by KDL

To be human is to experience situations that are painful and will leave their mark on you. It is an inevitable part of life. It is largely a matter of choosing what we choose to do about these wounds. Because there is no avoiding them, to live and breathe and experience life will lead us to be wounded in more ways than we can imagine. There will be physical challenges, mental difficulties, and emotional pains all inflicted upon us as we travel through the many paths life will propel us down. You can train, prepare and put out all the warnings we can, but wounds will always find us.  Some are huge, massively life-changing and others are small and seemingly insignificant. Still, the truth of the matter is that the only thing that will apply the right salve onto the injury is time, and it works magic on all types of pains and injuries.  Unfortunately, there is no way to avoid the scars they leave behind, and it’s how you wear them that counts. It all begins with the thoughts we entertain about our wounds, the emotions attached to those thoughts. The words we use to express our situation to the outside world and the actions we take because of all this. They will define us and decide finally if time does, in fact, heal all wounds.

Physical Scars

We all sustain injuries as a part of living. Bones get broken, ligaments snap, we sustain cuts, we are burned, and just about any other thing you can imagine.  These incidents happen by accident, and they challenge our physical abilities. Each instance marks us with a scar on our bodies, and whatever happens becomes a part.

‘Your knee wound is infected. I can provide an antibiotic. If you don’t have a drug plan, I can prescribe ‘time’ which I understand heals all wounds.’

Of our history and our story.  The physical wounds can be traumatic for sure, but they are not intentional and happen in life. They don’t tell the world anything about your personality, self-esteem, honesty, integrity, or kindness. They tell of something that happened to you from the outside.

As we age, these scars change. Sometimes they fade, sometimes they deepen and become more prominent, but they always reveal to the world one thing which has happened to us, never what is within us.  If you have survived the incident and lived to grow, care, love, and dream again, then you did quite well. The scars remind us of the strength we have within to bear the pain, overcome it and learn to live again.  Time allows this to happen, as even the deepest wound will heal if proven not to be fatal. We will recover, and time is all we need. It isn’t a perfect system, but it is the only one we have. I choose to wear the scars proudly and know I have earned every one. Time heals all wounds and leaves us a little bit wiser. But never the same.

Emotional Scars

These are tricky marks to see. Not only in others but also in ourselves. The damage is done on our insides, and the world will never know how deep or vital that wound has been. These are painful experiences we have to bear ourselves, and only those select few we choose to share them with will ever know the pain inside. But time works on these as well. The key is to deal with them, face the wounds and not let them grow and harm you on the inside.  It is a funny thing that ignoring these internal injuries doesn’t make them go away. It makes them a lasting part of your life.

When you face the things that have harmed you, then time can do its magic dance on them and allow you to move on. Like physical injuries, emotional damage always leaves a scar, and though invisible to others by sight, they are very noticeable to the feelings of others.  Sometimes the scars close us off and make other people out of bounds completely. Whatever has happened to us in the past, no matter how we were wounded, to live life, we need to move past the hurt in one way or another. If another has harmed you, then it is through forgiving those who have harmed you in the past.  Forgiveness allows you the power to heal and to take away any of the power that another person might have over you because of their behavior.

Most importantly is the act of forgiving yourself. Emotional pain will leave you a changed person, provide you with more depth, understanding, and empathy for the suffering of others. It will also leave you a vastly different person who is either destroyed by the challenges faced or learns to overcome them. It is a hell of a way to learn, but the lessons do last. They have to because when you doubt them, there are always the scars from your past to remind you. You have survived, but you are never the same.

Time Heals

When you are looking for the answers to life’s challenges and asking whatever higher power, you believe in, “Why is this happening to me?” Then you will understand yourself a little better. Often, we are sailing along in a pattern that we seem to have mastered, and life gives us these calm, serene moments, but the price is there will be moments of challenge that exist to push us to our limits and see just what exactly we are capable of.  Being pushed can be no gentle process sometimes. It will often hurt, it will leave a scar, and you will often be wounded by the acts of others and the careless, thoughtless, self-centered things they do.  Understand that the one thing life always seems to give you as a cure for wounds is time.

It is easy to understand why people today don’t like this solution to their woes and misfortune.  We live in a world of instant gratification. It would be much easier if we were like computers, and you could just run a program, and all of your pain would be taken away. But it is in the experiencing of the process of being hurt that we learn about who we are and what we are made of.  It will also lead us to the next best version of ourselves if we let it. Looking back at a painful experience can tell you where you went wrong, how to be better for it and how to avoid it in the future as well. You will be wiser but never the same.

Look at your own life and evaluate the things that have wounded you in all ways. Were there any benefits resulting from these experiences, which of course, you would much rather have avoided? The pain of loss, injury, betrayal, physical pain, and other forms of suffering leave their mark on you and cause you to change. Hopefully, it is into a better version of yourself.  That possibility always exists for you.  It begins with the thoughts you entertain, the emotions that are naturally attached to our thoughts, the words we speak to the world expressing these things, and of course, our actions that define us to the world.  Time heals all wounds, but it changes us forever as well. Who we are today will be a very different thing under the passing of time. I realize that I have been wounded and am never the same, but that is a good thing because sometimes it takes a trauma to motivate us to take the action we have to reach the destinations we are after. And time heals all wounds.

“One cannot tell when he is going to be healed, so do not try to set an exact time limit. Faith, not time, will determine when the cure will be affected.”–Paramahansa Yogananda

“Time heals many wounds, but this loss becomes the defining sadness of your life.”–Claire Cook

“Healing is a matter of time, but it is sometimes also a matter of opportunity.”  Hippocrates

“Time heals almost everything. But when you are healed, you are too old to enjoy.” —Paulo Coelho

“Time not only heals, but time also reveals.”–Karen Salmansohn

21

Questioning It

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Curiosity-Quotes-21Children have a natural sense of wonder and curiosity about all things. How does that work? Why is that color? Who is the tallest?  The smartest?  There are no limits to the questions and the knowledge that children seek. We were all like that at one point, and to return to that kind of mentality could only be a positive for more experienced people.

Curious Again Like A Child

As an adult, I have found that this curiosity and wonder are discouraged and seen almost as a weakness.  You are expected to become an expert in your field, and experts don’t make inquiries.  There should be no need for questions, no learning of new things. You understand life and how it works. You surely must be a failure if you don’t understand life and all of its intricate moves by the time you are 40.

The truth is that nobody knows all there is to learn about life because there is always going to be some aspect of this journey that can be expanded upon. Physically, emotionally, or spiritually.  Choose something and pursue a childlike curiosity about it and feel the wonder that will result from it.  Children don’t worry about what someone else thinks about their actions; and they are just thinking.

Question Everything

curiosity ffffLearning to ask the right questions can change your life.  A question will determine your thoughts and your words as you work out the answer.  These will lead to the actions that you take and determine the success that you experience. Ask the right questions: What should I focus on to make a lot of money today? What action can I take to be successful right now? What million-dollar idea do I see? What talent should I focus on today?  Once the question is asked, your mind will begin to work on it, even when you are not consciously considering it. Your subconscious will help you work on it.

Never be afraid to get clarity about the information that you are looking for. Be clear about the goal by curiosity-quotes-images-3-0d425dd3asking the right questions. Not asking questions due to a fear of looking less than intelligent is acting less than intelligent. Form your questions wisely because the thoughts in your mind today will determine the reality you experience tomorrow.

21

Who Are You?

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who are youThere can be no more daunting question to answer than to ask yourself, who am I? Then to answer it honestly.  Many people automatically list their job and family situation, but those outside influences on who you really are, not who you are.  Just in case you need to know who you are, I think you can start by recognizing who you are not. What are the factors that make you a unique individual living on this Earth?

Your Name is Not You

name is not youOne of the first answers to this question is going to be our name. In reality, your name is a label that was randomly assigned to you by the fate of your birth.

Wouldn’t you be essentially the same person inside if you were born in another part of the country? Or another side of the world?  Your name doesn’t dictate your honesty, integrity, or kindness. Your name is just a label that you call yourself, yet it is not you. So Who are you?

Your Job is Not You

not your jobThe second answer most people give to this question is a rundown of their current resume.

I am a physicist, and I work on quantum equations and string theory. This is another label that describes how you make money but not who you are.

In our society today, our identity is so closely related to what we do that often some people never get around this label to discover what is lying just behind it, waiting there to show the world who is there.  Who are you?

Where You Live is Definitely not You.

Another identification people often associate with is the roots of their existence.  I am from Greenville, Maine, and I went to geographycollege at the University of Maine at Farmington.

The mind designs these labels to give some glamorization to people and place them into convenient categories.

People will even fight people from another region. In fact, the bloodiest war in US History was fought largely due to geographical differences. Were those souls who fought and died in the Civil War really different because of where they happened to be born?

I think not.  Where you are from is a random aspect of your life due to your birth. Like your name, wouldn’t you still be the sensitive, caring, and kind person you are today regardless of where you were born or lived your life? Who are you?

Religion is not Identity.

religionMany people will identify themselves with their religion. I am a Catholic, a Buddhist, a Muslim, and so on.  How you relate to God is important for every person, whether they know it or not.

Yet your identity is not wrapped up in the label of religion either.  These are just different ways of looking at the same thing—the relationship between human and divine.

Yet this relationship still won’t tell anyone anything about you. People within the same religion are as different as each star in the sky.  Who are you?

Your Possessions are Not You

In this day of materialism, it seems to be bordering on religion. How much you can accumulate seems to be the most important thing to identify yourself with.  When you chase material self-esteem, no matter how much you accumulate, you will not be happy in the long run. Your possessions may be the envy of the world, and still, they will not fill up space inside of you. Because what you own is not who you are.  So who are you?

So Decide Who You Are

There is a significant mystery here to decide exactly who we are if you remove all of the labels and societal influences what is left inside of you.  What do you think? What do you feel? How do you love? How do you give?  Many questions may help you find your identity, or they may not.  I can only tell you for sure what you are not, and it is up to you to decide who you are.

poem

Who are you?

 

 

21

Today

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best day of the year
A possibility is waiting in the light of the morning.

It is easy to get down on certain days of the year. Sometimes it’s best to remember every day has the potential to be the absolute best day of your life. Regardless of what has happened yesterday, last week, or for the last 100 days, today has the potential to become one of the most fun-filled, action-packed days in your life. A day where you achieve everything you set out to do. A day where love comes into your life and changes everything. A day that is nothing but total and complete possibility, and the starting point will be the intention you set for your attitude today to be willing to experience it all. The field of possibility is open.

Ask A Question, Receive Adventure

best day of the yearIt can begin with a simple question that you ask yourself to open up the field of possibilities for yourself. Dain Heer, the author of the book Being You, Changing the World, asks,

“Who am I today, and what grand and glorious adventures am I going to have and RECEIVE today?”

A question that will open up your whole experience to every possibility there is. Do you want grand and glorious adventures in your life? Then be ready to accept it. People get into routines each day because routines are safe, and we always know what results in they are most likely to produce. There are few surprises and very little growth that come from the journey through your routine. You will be safe, but often you will not grow, and adventure is out of the question because it is difficult to schedule adventure.

The cure is to set your mind open to all the possibilities that your life has contained within each moment. You could write something, think something, do something at any given moment and the only thing stopping you from doing it is your intention for the day.  Be willing to receive the possibilities of today and accept what they bring with them.

The heart of adventure is the unknown that comes along with it. Will it be scary? Will it be hard? Will it be fantastic? Will it be unbelievable?  The answer is most likely yes to all of these things at once. How exciting is that?  What could make today the best day of the year like an adventure that allows you to grow? Open up your field of possibility.

Let the Love In

Each day is a choice between love and fear. You decide to create the attitude you share with the Best Day of the yearworld, and that attitude is an energy that will pervade your very being. Fear is present in each moment because all people are concerned about what might be taken from them, safety, love, family, money, possessions, or anything else that is momentary. Yet fear is just a thought, and 99.9% of the time, it is a negative figment of your imagination that controls your life.  Those who are successful in enjoying the journey of life can put aside the fear and choose the loving thought or action in their day. The field of possibility will provide what you constantly think of.

How can today be the best day of the year if you are afraid of the consequences it MIGHT bring to you that are negative. There is a risk in everything worthwhile, love, life, or crossing the street.  You cannot have great value without risk. That is the secret of things that are precious in the world. You cannot have one without the other. There is no need to fear anything, and you can handle it all. Choose the thought of love, laughter, creating, perseverance, praise of others, healing, giving, taking action, growing, praying, and most of all, living over their fear-based counterparts, and today will indeed be the best day of your life! At least until tomorrow when the field of possibility is new.

“Write in your heart that every day is the best day of the year.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

21

Favorite Things

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I have learned a few things throughout my life to assist me in navigating the sometimes stormy waters I have encountered. They aren’t tricky in concept and have proven useful when the challenges of existence come my way.  As we all know, there are always two-sided to life. It will bring you decisive, secure, happy moments, but along with each of those will come challenges that will bring you growth. These things we feel we could do without, but these things have a purpose. They allow us to grow beyond where we are right now in this moment.  “What is this trying to teach me?” 

I am sure we can all do without the suffering moments, loss, and sadness in life. The bitter provides value to the sweet.  You can try to prepare yourself to handle the tough times and persevere in life and not have the unexpected challenges of life bury you alive when they hit. You lose a job, a relationship ends, someone passes away, or even a natural disaster hits.  You will either grow from these things or be beaten by them. Don’t be beaten. Use these little weapons to help you win.

Foul Weather Gear

Foul weather gear is a term I picked up from some friends of mine many years ago. They raced a boat on the ocean for fun and took me out for a sail quite often. The experience was excellent, and I enjoyed the gentle waves on the sea on a bright, warm summer day.  It was relaxing and utterly enjoyable. Life is often like this. But……Sometimes though, the weather will turn, and it isn’t so lovely, and it rains hard, and the winds are no longer favorable but merciless, which can be quite dangerous. When the storm hits is when you break out your foul weather gear, and it will help you make it through the storm and enjoy the ride as much as possible. It is a measure we should all take in life. Life often seems like a sunny day with beautiful weather, but a storm can arise out of nowhere. It is always good to have foul weather gear at hand, just in case.

Some people are so attached to the sunny day and calm sail they will never see the joy and excitement that comes from the harsher weather heading your way — this chance to use your wits and develop your skill on the boat. You can grow as an individual and with the crew as well. There may be some danger, but life is full of uncertainty. It allows us to learn to deal with it.

Life Gives What We Need

In a perfect world, we would always find an immediate reward for good behavior and positive actions. And those who treat people poorly and make decisions that harm others would be immediately punished. But that is not how things work. If you look at the short game, life will never seem fair.  But when you look at the extended play, it appears that all things work out exactly as they should. Those who live their lives based on fear have little joy and happiness, and those who live in love are happy and enjoy life. Never expect life to give you everything you ever wanted on a silver platter, it won’t, and you will spend your time wallowing in self-pity if that is what you expect. But life will allow you the chance to grow and become the best person you can be in all areas.  Never worry about the fairness of life, worry about your ability to deal with what you face, and making positive decisions based on kindness, caring, understanding, acceptance, and love. This ability will allow you to see the long game of your life because that is all that matters.  Life gives us all an equal opportunity to become our best, so it is the ultimate level of fairness.

Practice Kindness

There are no situations where practicing kindness can hurt anything and always contributes to a better day for those you practice kindness. Sometimes we get wrapped up in our desires and feelings, and the fear of not getting what we want or feel we need can diminish our mood and make us less a lower version of ourselves. Negative thoughts make us move around in a bad mood, and we distribute negative energy to all folks we encounter that day.

Viewing the world from the scope of what we can do for others rather than what we can do for ourselves will benefit all involved, including the world in general.  Look at your expectations for the day, see what you seek for yourself, and then look for the simple things you can do to make someone else’s day a little brighter. Kindness is easy to practice because it feels good to be kind. Put other people first and treat the world with that attitude, and it will generally treat you that way too.

Build Your Body

Exercise is a choice, and participating in it regularly will bring you many benefits. It is suitable for the functioning of your body in heart, mind, and spirit daily, and that by itself is enough. Along with a sensible diet, it will help you maintain a healthier weight and feel better in overall health.  But there is also another benefit that many don’t contemplate.

When tragedy comes into your life, you will be mentally and physically able to handle things better.  Many people have their lives jump off the rails at the slightest bump of adversity.  Working out teaches you to reach deep inside yourself and know that there is a strength to do what you have to do, even if sometimes you don’t want to.  Without a consistent exercise regimen, I think that we tend to move to the soft side and become vulnerable. Whatever training and physical activity resonate with you, participate in it.  Lifting, jogging, biking, yoga, martial arts, or any other type of exercise will provide you strength inside and outside.

Find Moments of Quiet

It is in the moments of quiet that you can hear yourself. Take time to find the places in life where you can get your mind to stop making noise and listen to the natural inner guidance we all have. Experience provides us with many rules and expectations that teach us what society expects from us, but they don’t help our soul express itself in the way one needs. To follow this inner guidance, we need to quiet the mind and stop chasing the world’s expectations. Listen to the inner voice that exists in each of us.  The sound is your intuition, and it is much wiser than your thoughts will ever be.

Don’t ignore your intuition because of the thoughts you think about the fears and expectations of the world.  Find the quiet and ask simple questions and follow the answers you hear. It sounds simple, but it takes commitment because as soon as you get a response, your mind will kick back in with a million objections and doubts. What will people think? How can that work? Will we lose the respect of others?  Those we love will judge us harshly.  Nobody will understand. Soon the right answer seems like an impossible challenge.  It is much easier to maintain the status quo, but it isn’t very fulfilling. Life brings a growth experience and avoiding growth leads to atrophy and death.  Listen to your inner voice.

Meditation

Taking on meditation is a great way to calm your mind and stop the constant chatter. There are many misconceptions about the practice, it is not difficult, and it is not religious. It is a tool to work with your mind and the thoughts you have rather than be bowled over by it. It can also help you find a way to deal with your emotions more healthily.  Since we get very little guidance in our lives on how to do this, meditation has been a savior to me in making sense, accepting, and moving past the inevitable negative emotions which arise from life.

There are many different ways to meditate; to me, there is no wrong way. You will be able to find guided meditations easily. I use an app on my phone called Insight Timer, and there are many others.  They offer a chance to be conducted in a direction you need to work on, or you can use their timer with ambient sound and focus on your breathing.  Whatever method resonates with you and helps you live a healthier life is a good thing to do. Give it a try. You will only find positives.

These are a few little thoughts to make life a more enjoyable experience.  Keep your foul weather gear handy and ride out the storm. Understand life is a long game, it may seem unfair at the moment, but it all equals out in the end. As long as your alive, there is a chance for a comeback.  Kindness is always the right choice. If you are questioning whether or not understanding will work, practice compassion.  Find your moments of quiet, just for you, because you deserve it. We all need to contemplate the things which make us feel fulfilled, what steps to take next, and where our power lies. To that end, give practicing meditation a chance. It can allow you to tame the negative thoughts and produce a positive force of action in your life. Be physical, and take care of your body in some way. You only get one of them, and it will take you as far in life as you let it.

Keep these tools at your disposal, and they will help you overcome the hard times and answer the question: What is this trying to teach me?