This whole “life” thing is rather interesting. From the people we meet, to when we meet them, to the things we lose and when we lose them … life is anything but predictable. I have had my share of love, and I have lost a lot of things and people I had hoped I’d never lose. But, I always find a way to smile because the one thing I will not be able to say about my life is that it was boring. And that’s enough for me.
One lesson I hold near and dear to my heart is that everyone you meet is a teacher. Every heartbreak, every fleeting moment of passion, every sleepless night — they are all lessons that we can draw from. We can store them in our “ahh … this looks familiar, I’ve definitely been here before” bank. In the process, we learn more about ourselves and how we react to stimulus — whether it is positive or negative stimulus is not the point. The point is that we learn and we add another tool to our tool belt.
In life, it’s not the things we go through that we should worry about, because there will always be trial and tribulation. Rather, it’s how we carry ourselves through them that should be our focus.
So let’s allow ourselves to let go and just be — control what we can control. Hopefully these affirmations, along with steps to guide you, help to catapult you into letting go and just being:
MANTRA: MY FEAR OF IT IS GREATER THAN ‘IT’
The age-old fear conundrum is often that our anticipation for something to happen is often a greater and more over-amplified sensation than the sensation that comes when it happens. That’s what most anxiety stems from: Bracing for the fall instead of just falling. A Buddhist would urge you that what you resist will persist, so step one is figuring out what you are resisting. What are you afraid of? Is it failure? Is it a fear of never being loved? What is ‘it?’
MANTRA: I AM IN CONTROL OF MY REACTION
It’s hard to differentiate our own insecurities from an actual occurrence. An example of this comes from a very common relationship argument theme: When your partner interacts with the opposite sex, are you becoming jealous because your partner is being inappropriate with that person or because someone in the past caused you harm and this is reopening that wound? It’s OK to feel what you feel but you are ultimately responsible for your reaction to the stimulus, whether it’s positive or negative. The next time you feel that wave of jealousy or sting of anger, pause. Breathe. Reflect. Ask yourself, is this my pain or did someone else legitimately cause me pain? Then decide how to react.