Transform Your Tales of Woe!

I learned something from someone once close to me.  When we share our stories, we should be focused on a message that will share experience in the positive, focus on instilling hope and fostering healing and faith.  Those were great words in my experience.  Its true that when bad things happen to us, we want to tell others our story.  We want validation that we are okay.  We want to validate what someone else did was not okay.  In the eyes of others, it does not matter if others agree with a perceived wrong.  If you believe or feel you were wronged, you were.  Rather than focusing overmuch on the nitty and gritty details of your story, step back a moment and focus on the good that came from the situation.  There is always something good.  When my father died many years ago, I learned that I had unexpected support from surprising places.  I noticed that people stepped out of the shadows and gave of themselves.  It was beautiful to witness the goodness in other souls and it relieved so much pain.

Things must happen to us in our lives to propel us from the false structures we built to protect ourselves, to compel us to move from a place of stasis and stagnant growth and to develop the impetus within us to change and move on to bigger and better lessons.  It sometimes feels like the bad things that happen in our lives are punishment or unfair.  If you’re going through life with a victim mentality or expecting life to be fair, I assure you that time and time again, this situation will reinforce that kind of thinking.  You are no victim.  There are actions in this world and there are consequences.  How you experience both is a matter of your perspective.  We all have natural tendencies based on the environmental psychology we were raised with.  But, when we mature and grow, we hopefully move away from our wounds and natural unhealthy defense mechanisms and begin to strive for greater understanding.  We really have to work hard to shift our perspective sometimes to make sure we are in a state of grace or even gratitude and positive thinking.  It’s not hard if you give it an honest try and be tenacious about it.  But, if you can find a way there, the bad things that happen will be less burdensome to bear.

As you work through your healing and begin to tell your story, think not about reinforcing the victim stance or diminishing the beauty of your own soul by beating yourself up thinking of punishment (or focusing on the person who caused you pain).  Instead, think about the lesson that you might be learning.  If you’re not sure what the lesson is, maybe that should be the focus of your story telling…to seek an answer…to seek growth but not to confirm the  negativity or validate yourself.  Don’t doubt yourself.  Be clear and validate assumptions you’re making before you get emotional but don’t doubt what you think and feel.  There are those in the world who would convince you the sky is green and the grass is blue and hurt you in the process.  However, you know what you know and you do not need external validation.  You need to validate your own mind and stick close to your God or Goddess to validate what you feel is wrong.  Then move forward with righting your own thinking.  Shift the negative to positive as you think about your actions related to the situation.

Living life is tough sometimes but it does not have to be a bad experience.  You do get to choose how you view everything that unfolds in your life.  You get to choose whether you wish to be victimized.  You get to choose whether you will find value in life’s lessons.  It really is up to you.  Choosing a positive perspective makes life’s difficult lessons a little easier to bear and besides that it’s always fun looking for silver linings in ominous rain clouds.  It makes you forget about the storm for a while!  I pray that life’s journey brings you beautiful lessons, unconditional love and fosters the greatest compassion within you the world has ever known.  ~blessings