Has life thrown you a curve ball and made you feel as though you don’t know up from down? Sometimes life hits you hard, like a tornado touching down. Everything in its path gets tossed up and down and sometimes it gets broken and crushed. When we encounter these experiences, we can get shook up and not know how to bounce back. We are going on our merry way and we think we have a great life. Everything seems to be going great until suddenly it’s not. How you choose to respond to that kind of events life has thrown your way will affect the direction your life goes. Many people get hit with life and it can stop them in their tracks. Then they choose to take on the victim role. We have a choice of whether we will remain a victim or a victor. I got hit with a personal setback recently in my life.
I admit for a period of time I chose to be the victim. My mind went down the road of it was a disaster and I instantly began to question how I was going to get through this. Suffice to say, this challenge I was dealing with was a big problem. As I allowed those thoughts to build momentum the problem loomed larger than life.
I stayed this way for a day then I had synchronized phone call with two very good friends. Both of them reminded me of the importance of being grateful. I thought about it and realized they were right. My friends gently reminded me that I was making a choice to remain a victim instead of being a victor. I began to go through my list of things I was grateful for and after saying them and writing them down I began to feel much better. I then began to formulate ideas and thoughts giving a positive way forward and coming up with workable solutions. The problem is still there, but the solutions are there as well. I don’t feel as overwhelmed by the challenges as I did.
I still go about my day stating the many things I am grateful for in my life. Any challenges that present themselves, I am able to see through the lens of positive possibilities and not disaster. When I began to view myself as a victor, I began to see the problem with options. With every challenge, there are possibilities. I began to say I was thankful for the challenge even though it didn’t feel good. As I did this, the situation began to reveal lessons I needed to learn as a result of it. I was able to learn some very powerful lessons and I am grateful. I chose to make peace with the situation. I accepted I could not change it nor the outcome. The only thing I could do is learn from it and be at peace with it, by doing this I was able to remain peaceful and happy even though the problem is still working its way out. When we choose to see a problem through the glass half full perspective the problems don’t seem as large. When I choose the victim role, the problems are overwhelming.
The only thing we can control is how we choose to respond to a situation, person or thing. We cannot control others nor how they react. If we make a decision to not allow them to bother us, they won’t.
The decision to choose to see myself being victorious and grateful helped me to remember I had a choice in my response, and the outcomes of the choice I had made, and if I remembered to implement this tool, I am going to share with you, things would change.
I am going to share tools that everyone can begin to implement into their lives that can change the lens we view life through. I was reminded to focus on my gratitude and thankfulness. There are so many things that we have in our lives to be grateful for. We tend to take them for granted and we just forget. If when you wake up you begin your day with expressing thankfulness for the things that you have in your life, you will be given more things to be thankful for. When we are grateful/thankful, it takes the focus off the problem and we are able to open our mind to the solutions we are seeking. Plus, it enables us to receive more things to be grateful for. Often the things we tend to take for granted, many in this world would love to have what we have in our lives. It can be as simple as being grateful for your home, family, job or education. One can be thankful for the running water and the ability to shower in hot water. These are things we tend to take for granted. When we begin to show thankfulness or gratitude, the problems we may be encountering seem to lessen. When the focus is off the problem, the solutions can reveal themselves. Practice gratitude everyday in the morning and see if you don’t have more things that show up, that allow one to be grateful. When we are thankful, we can change the pictures in our mind. That picture in our mind can change the severity of the challenge we are encountering. Depending upon the lens we are viewing a problem through it can impact the solution. Remember always express gratitude/thankfulness and the problem will look different.
Now when you are faced with a situation that you don’t know how to fix, remember to choose gratefulness and remember only you can choose how to react to the problem. Be the victor not the victim.
