When Life Hits The Pause Button…
/
… Are you listening?
How do you handle life events such as the end of a long-term relationship, getting ill or being diagnosed with a serious illness, financial issues, difficulties with your child, a serious conflict at work and other difficult issues?
The most common and automatic way of dealing with such life events is… to continue doing things in the exact same way that created the context in which the problem arose.
For example, if you tend to go with the flow and let things happen, chances are that you’re going to address any new problem in the exact same way.
And if you tend to live life with full force, it’s extremely likely that you’ll fight to the ground the issue you’re dealing with.
Look at how we handle health issues. People who tend to be passive in life will be passive in their illness. People who tend to fight will fight.
And that’s the problem.
Although we like to see ourselves victims of fate or of other people, we have a certain level of contribution to a lot of the issues that we face. It’s because every single event happens in a context that we greatly contribute to create. And the very patterns that we unconsciously use to live life generate imbalances that can lead to problems. Eventually, internal imbalances show up externally: a partner leaves, a conflict escalates, health deteriorates, etc.
If we attempt to resolve the problem in the same way that contributed to it, we’re not making the most of what life is trying to bring to our attention. Resolving the problem - and avoiding an even more painful repeat - requires us to reach a higher level of functioning.
“We can not solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them.” (Albert Einstein)
To get started, here are some questions to ask our self:
How do we shift from a state of shock to a place of internal center?
How can we design the right questions about what’s occurring?
How do we get clarity and objectivity in times of distress?
How can we be compassionate to our self while accepting 100% responsibility of our part in the problem?
How can we decide what changes are needed and most importantly, how do we embark on the journey of growth?
An important first step in our reflection is to stop feeding ourselves with belief systems that keep us in pattern, and to stop surrounding ourselves with too many people who celebrate us for doing the very things that get us in trouble.
There is nothing better than an open mind and friends who have the courage to rock our boat when they see a need to do so.
We’re living organisms called by life to grow, just like other living organisms. What does not grow die. When things get out of balance, we can see ourselves as victim of fate or of others - and be passive or aggressive in reaction - or we can accept the pause that we’re invited into and ask our self: “What is life trying to show me that I am not seeing?”
The answer could be to slow down or to speed up, to ask for advice or to listen more to our gut instinct, to open our heart or to open our mind. But it will most likely be very different than whatever we have done so far.
When life hits the pause button, honor yourself. Stop, take a breath and be curious.
That pause could very well be the best gift that life has ever given you.
