What is this teaching me?

What is this teaching me?

When things happen in life, it is easy to get carried away and feel as if life is unfair. This happens due to thinking happens we have from our beliefs. Sometimes a single occurence can turn our life upside down because of all-or-nothing thinking. Sometimes we believe our feelings ratger than learn from them, due to emotional reasoning.

Here is what I am learning that is helping me to work on my cognitive distortions,

1. A lot of what I want will happen. The unwanted will also happen. That is duality. That is life. To know what I want, I also have to know and experience the unwanted.

2. When something happens, it is only for the reason that I need to appreciate where I am. And to recognise what I want, and what I do not want.

3. When what I want happens, I rejoice and appreciate that I am doing well. I feel "blessed!"

4. When the unexpected or the unwanted happens, I am learning to treat it with nearly the same attitude. Because I was not expecting it, I welcome it with curiosity, and parent myself. I am learning to ask myself a key question.

"What is this teaching me?"

Because there is a lesson in everything that happens. There is especially many lessons if I do not get what I want.

a) There is a story from my past that I am getting mixed up with the present situation.

b) There is a state I am in, that is allowing what is happening, and there is a state I must mind getting into that will interfere with a state of peacefulness - Getting agitated because something did not happen. Since it had not happened, that is no longer within my control, so I need to ask myself a next question, "what can I do about it?"

Expecting things to happen as I want them to can come from entitlement. Yet, I might be in a self-contradictictory state of negative thoughts and complaining.

5. So, I parent and soothe the distress from not getting what I want. I have recognised and learnt to apply the many other perspectives out there, that could be defined by what happens.

6. What is this teaching me?

Something not happening can be for many reasons,

a) I am not in receiving mode of what I want. b) What I want is not yet ripe and ready. c) This that I am not getting right now is not my thing. d) The situation is offering me feedback about where I am in relationship to what I want. e) Maybe I am being removed from something unsafe. f) Each happening serves as a cooperative component to create my path of least resistance for something I need in future.

So, it is that I am learning instead, to create solutions for the situation.

Solutions

1. Self-care First line solutions include parenting myself and improving my emotional baseline. This daily practised routine is a muscle I exercise to tolerate duality, to prepare for the unwanted, minimise entitlement, to welcome and accept different perspective, to soothe myself when I feel distressed, to avoid focusing on problems, and instead pay attention to solutions.

2. Specific solutions I might need to learn acceptance. To learn to let go. To trust and allow. To create boundaries. To express my needs. To apologise.

I then bring myself to the present with affirmations, gratitude and cartharsis, 54321, because life is only happening now. Nothing is permanent. It will pass.

If I keep focusing on the problem, not the solutions and the present, I lose the moment. I lose parts of my life. I lose my joy. I am no longer the mostly peaceful and content being I want to be.

Conclusion

Before you spend a lot of time focusing on what is going wrong, and thinking you are being punished or picked on, recognise the feedback in any situation. Welcome what happens as part of life, Experience the moment, do not ignore it or react to it, Create solutions and a plan and remember, the only time you have is now. Get back to the present.

Even when the situation is still ongoing, allocate it thinking time in your day, and bring your focus back to the present.

By simply asking yourself the question, " What is this teaching me?", you deal with what is, and move on.