Lost or FOUND?

A few years ago, I had this insight. When I was driving somewhere new, I noticed it was always right after I started to fear I was lost, that I would find where I was going. This happened enough times I began to reinterpret what previously felt like “oh shit, I think I am lost.” to “Oh, I must be almost there.” I think that much of the stories our minds feed us are misinterpretations of what’s really going on, and usually skewed towards the negative. I wonder what would happen if, instead of our previous interpretation of “Oh shit, we are royally f*cked” we re-identified that feeling as “Oh wow, something is about to change!”

I have a bit of a hypothesis about this. I think that the stress we feel, that feeling we interpret as a soon-to-be failure or chaos, is actually a mislabeling of our intuition alerting us to impending change. When we begin to run with the interpretation of “I’m screwed” the mounting stress is actually the dissonance that is created when we attempt to fix something, that is perhaps already on its way to resolution, from a place of fear and anxiety. Very often if we take even a moments pause, the span of time it takes to have one deep breath, we can reorient our interpretation and take an action based on something closer to reality and with trust intact. The point is, the stress we apply to find a solution to a problem, very often IS the problem… or at least only serves to exacerbate the problem.

On a personal level, Of course, we experience REAL problems and “shit hitting the fan” moments. Hell, I had a string of really awful years with TONS of “problems”. But I think part of what created the pain of this was less the circumstances/problems of what was happening outside of myself and more what I was telling myself about it. When I was in my string of bad years, I would go to bed obsessing about all my “problems” and how horrible I felt about them. Relationships, money, and purpose were the main three that plagued me. What I didn’t realize is that my internal dialogue about the events in my life was keeping me from taking the correct actions to resolve it. So, big surprise, I would wake up the next day with all those same thoughts running through me, causing the same emotions and the same resultant actions and life. While it might APPEAR that the shittiness I was complaining about kept happening TO ME, It was actually my thoughts around those circumstances that kept me in lockstep with them.

On a global level, there is no doubt that very big, very real things are going down in the world. Climate change, political discord, power struggles, and human suffering… to name just a few. It is so easy to look at all the outward signs, and the resultant internal stress, and make the conclusion “We are doomed.” I am not saying that there aren’t big problems that require our swift and efficient care and attention… not by a long shot. What I am saying is that our internal translation of outward events MATTERS. If we want to ride the wave of the radical shift that is ALREADY occurring and play our part in choosing the direction, we need to caretake personal perspectives more than ever. Our personal perspective can make the difference between living full of stress and fear, or living with hope and energy.

What if the stress and fear we are feeling are indications of an impending CHANGE, not impending DOOM? Maybe that feeling in the pit of our stomachs is telling us things are about to make a radical shift for the BETTER? Click To Tweet

A reframe for my fellow worriers:

What if the stress and fear we are feeling are indications of an impending CHANGE, not impending DOOM. Maybe that feeling in the pit of our stomachs is telling us things are about to make a radical shift for the BETTER and not for the worse? What if the stress we are feeling is largely self-created by the meaning we are making, instead of what’s REALLY about to happen? What if we trusted ourselves and the flow of GOOD in life just a little bit more?

Try this on:

Practice questioning your habitual thought patterns. See if you can catch yourself making snap decisions about what events in life MEAN and ask yourself if it’s really true. Just noticing can be enough to stop the train of negative meaning making and give you back some choice in what atmosphere you want to create in your own inner landscape. In time you might even get a better “read” on what your intuition is trying to tell you. This in itself will reduce SO much stress! Remember that time is always flowing. Everything changes and nothing, no matter how you feel about it, can stop it. None of us knows the future. Might as well feel into the moment, appreciate the good stuff as much as possible… and when things are shitty, thank your lucky stars that IT WILL CHANGE. Knowing everything changes, how do you want to think, feel and act to help things move in a direction you prefer? Kind of like flying a kite. Which stream do you want to ride? And lastly, when in doubt, MOVE YOUR BODY and BREATHE. Most especially, if that is the LAST thing you want to do. The mind follows the body… every time 😉 

As always, we are all in this together… Isn’t it grand?

xo Anah