The moment after you take your first breath you have a past. Then comes the day you begin judging the quality of your experiences.
Far too often unfortunately, the judgment made is that more moments than not are remembered as, “Not good enough.”
The greatest power we have is the ability to assign whatever meaning we choose to each moment of our life and we tend to treat those moments like crap instead of fertilizer.
It’s important that you turn even the most difficult events into something you can use.
I imagine you know at least one person who continues to revisit a painful event from their life and every time they tell it nothing has changed. It still hurts; it’s still awful and in some regards its still happening. Why?
It’s because they’ve chosen to ruminate over it and relive it instead of reflecting on it. It’s the reflection that’s the key to transforming it into something useful.
Resentment of the past is based on the belief that the event was wrong simply because it occurred. A reflective lens finds purpose in it and asks, “How can I grow now that I know?”
What many people forget is that the only way to get better at anything is to first experience what doesn’t work.
We learn to experience those moments as failure, as something going wrong when in reality something not working is simply the process of elimination we all utilize to discover what eventually does the trick.
We can only learn from our experiences, however, if we’re teachable. When we believe we’ve got it all figured out is when it’s easiest to be blindsided by reality.
Then when you sense of “rightness” is assaulted you respond with resentful phrases such as, “I wish it never happened,” “I wish I never met that person, “If I had to do it over again . . .” etc.
In those moments what you are in fact wishing for is to undo the opportunity you were given to learn something. Learn what?
Iyanla VanZant said, “When you can tell the story and it doesn’t bring up any pain, you know it has been healed.”
Those who say time heals all wounds often can’t explain why. Well I’ll give you a few reasons why it does. The more time that passes the more you realize that you’re still here and you’re still thriving.
Most important, is when you discover that things continued to get better because you used what happened instead of being abused by it.
Each time you reflect upon something you should have that much more evidence that life has gotten better in some way so that the pain is dwarfed by comparison.
I can honestly say that 24 years after surviving cancer and 4 years after an extremely painful divorce that life has never been sweeter.
Reflect upon your life and you are sure to discover that the events you resent cause you pain and the moments upon which you reflect help you grow.
So the question for you now is, “How can I grow now that I know?”
Thanks for being you.
Brian R King
As a cancer survivor, adult with Dyslexia, A.D.D., the father of three sons on the autism spectrum as well as someone who lives on the autism spectrum myself, I’ve learned something very critical. That success in life has nothing to do with circumstances but everything to do with strategies.
I’ve learned that Fear and Excitement are the same feeling, the difference being whether you decide the feeling means that “I can’t” or that “I’m ready!”
I’ve become a master of turning Problems into Possibilities and Obstacles into Opportunities and I’ve learned to teach my clients to do the same thing using what I refer to as “The Effective Factor.” A laser focused ability to make small shifts that create massive results in every area of your life.
I look forward to serving you,
Brian R. King LCSW
630-778-3447
http://BrianRaymondKing.com