Focus
When things get really bad, we tend to forget, that it is our thought about the situation that makes it feel so bad.
I write this not to cast blame – we all have things in our experience that we would rather do without – but to remind you that it is possible, for you and I both, to gently switch your focus from what you cannot stand into what you would rather be living.
Because anything you focus on grows.
When you fight against something, and your focus is on the problem, you end up adding to the problem, not the solution.
In other words, if you do not like what you are living, and you continue whining about it, you usually get more and more reasons to whine. There is your proof about the power of your mind.
Things getting worse and worse and worse can be a wonderful thing, though. It only means that this hellish situation too shall pass.
There is a turning point to every downward spiral. You think you cannot stand life anymore, you are angry and sad and tired and would just like to sleep.
And all of a sudden, you see light. Hope rises. Darling don’t you worry, everything will be okay in the end.
While this is how life often seems to unfold, we do not have to make our everyday experiences this dramatic.
To have a smoother ride, the best skill you can practice is accepting that, at any given moment, things are how they are.
I am sad now, and it is okay.
I have not heard back from that important job interview, which makes me tense. It is okay to be tense.
I am worried that people do not like me. It may be stupid, but this is how I feel right now, and that is okay.
I feel inferior to my new smart and pretty colleague at work, and although this is completely ridiculous, this is how I feel, and it is okay.
You are where you are. Nothing is going to change that right now.
And yet, regardless of where you are now, there is nothing you cannot have, do or be.
Accepting the situation and bringing yourself at peace – regardless of the circumstances – does not mean you give up your hope to see things improving.
The only thing you give up is the fight, the struggle in your head: I want that but I have this, and the situation is driving me crazy!
When you begin taking life in as it comes, accepting yourself and your feelings as they are, accepting other people and their feelings as they are, there is no longer anything to whine about.
Plus, your newly established all-is-well attitude changes your perspective. You truly and honestly begin feeling better and seeing better things in your life.
Appreciating where you are and what you have will bring you more and more reasons to feel appreciation.
Loving what you have will create
more to love.