by Pragito Dove: Do you secretly ache for something more? Do you celebrate the miracle that is your life or are you constantly running, frustrated by the never-ending to-do list at home and at work?
When life is not going our way, it can be hard to look on the bright side. And what about the people who tell you “It’s all good” when your life is in a state of overwhelm, collapse, or just plain sucks. What’s good about it?
The key is to realize that you are creating everything in your life, that it is all perfect, even though you might not recognize it at the time. Hold the faith – understanding will come. Imagine Nelson Mandela holding the faith for 27 years while he was in prison!
Rather than seeing yourself as a victim, ask yourself, for example: “Why am I creating this difficult, angry neighbor who refuses to discuss the parking situation with me?”
In this very question your freedom starts. By refusing to get angry back, which creates a power struggle, you step past the ego, which would love to be ‘right’ and ‘win’, and create a calm spaciousness, in which amazing outcomes can happen. How about Nelson Mandela becoming the first black President of South Africa for an amazing, miraculous outcome from his prison term!
“As I walked out the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew if I didn’t leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I’d still be in prison.” –Nelson Mandela
By sending love, and compassion, to your antagonist, miraculous changes can occur.
In addition, you discover a rich well of creativity, strength, and wisdom inside you that you didn’t know you had.
What if we allowed ourselves to fully experience our challenges and grow and expand because of them?
Concerns and fears will still arise but we can learn to meet them from a place of spaciousness and calm. With these proven strategies below you will gain the understanding, and courage, to overcome challenges, and no longer run from your fears, but stand self-assured knowing you can navigate whatever comes your way.
1. Acknowledge your present moment reality.
Accept what is. This doesn’t mean you have to like it, but you do have to accept it. Fighting reality only make things worse. In the very acceptance of what is happening, you relax, and a spaciousness opens up, that allows for a shift to happen. You are now entering the miracle zone, where all kinds of unexpected goodness can appear. Stay open to possibility.
2. Experience Your Moments Of Joy
This might sound obvious, but a lot of us have a pattern of expecting the other shoe to drop when life is going well. Become aware of this habit, and put your attention, energy and focus on really experiencing your moments of joy without assuming that disaster awaits around the corner. What if, around the corner, there is even more joy?
Love, joy and happiness are our natural state.
It is only our programming of fear, lack, and scarcity that tells us otherwise. The more you become aware of this negative programming, and ignore it, the more joy you will experience.
3. Allow Yourself To Experience Your Fears and Challenges
Instead of shutting down, and running from fear with all kinds of distractions, like obsessively checking your social media, too much TV/Internet, and so on,
sit with yourself, and allow the feelings, however uncomfortable, they might be. In the very feeling lies the healing. In the very allowing, fears dissolve.
Don’t be afraid of fear: befriend, and embrace it. Open the door, look inside and realize that there is no skeleton in the closet. This will free you up to experience more joy, and less fear.
4. Let Go Of Desire
At the root of fear is desire: your agenda that things have to look a particular way. Let go of your attachment to the way you want things to look, relax, and see what happens. And I don’t mean that you fall into an apathetic, aimless state of passivity. Have your desires, but let go of your attachment that they have to manifest in a particular way.
When we insist that things have to be a certain way, we can miss what life is offering us.
5. Understand & Be Grateful For Your Fears
The key to dissolving fear is to understand it. This means that you have to drop all judgment, condemnation, and evaluation that fear is wrong. Fear is a reality in our lives, it is a part of being human. Once it is faced, and understood, it can be transformed. You experience more love, and joy, and fear lessens. Your challenges become easier to navigate.
Meditation: Gratitude For Challenges
Benefits:
By allowing ourselves to fully experience our challenges, we grow and expand because of them. This technique can take days that look grim from the get go and put them into a perspective that is not only manageable, but void of actual problems!
Whatever situation or person is a challenge in your life right now, allow yourself to experience it, without judgment, condemnation, or evaluation. It is what it is. Accept it. This doesn’t mean you have to like it, but in the very acceptance, a spaciousness occurs.
In that spaciousness, amazing things can happen.
If you have labeled something as “bad”, put your attention, energy, and focus on it until you feel a shift from being disgruntled in some way, to a feeling like “Oh yeah, everything happens for a reason, and even though this looks bad now, it will be revealed later on how perfect it is, so it IS something to actually be thankful for.”
This article is dedicated to our beloved friend, Nelson Mandela. May we all strive to keep his vision shining bright, bringing peace to ourselves, and therefore, to our fellow human beings.
I look forward to your comments.
