5 Things to Remember When Life is NOT Going Your Way
“Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.” ~ Dalai-Lama
How do you respond when it seems life is going against you? Do you get angry, depressed, or feel life isn’t fair? Well, if you chose the latter, you are correct—life ISN’T fair!
Here are 5 things to keep in mind when you find yourself in turbulent or stressful times.
1. You cannot control anything other than yourself.
When you find yourself in times of trouble, the Serenity Prayer is most helpful. “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to accept the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” Acceptance plays a crucial part here. You may not like the situation you are currently in, but accepting it makes it a little easier to go through.
Knowing you’re where you’re supposed to be—whether it’s to learn a lesson or humble your ego—causes you to pause and reflect on the situation in which you find yourself.
2. Don’t get emotionally attached to your desires.
When one door closes, another one opens. If you attach yourself to a desired outcome, you can become bitter and resentful when it doesn’t happen. There’s no point in hanging onto what could’ve been.
With an open heart and mind, you can genuinely allow new and different experiences into your life. You never know, it could be a wonderful stroke of luck!
3. If you want to change something, start by changing yourself.
“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.” ~ Rumi
If you want to change your outcomes, you must first change what you are doing, and that includes changing yourself. Keep in mind the saying, “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always gotten.”
Be the change you wish to see in the world.
4. Be gentle and kind to yourself.
Whether you think the reason why life’s not going your way is your fault or not, you must be kind to yourself. When you find that you’re beating yourself up, put down the baseball bat and pick up a feather!
Creating a life of purpose doesn’t always come easily, but it must come from a place of love. Loving yourself first leads to actions that come from the heart where you see clearly, feel strong, and know you make good choices.
5. This too shall pass.
By learning to embrace the impermanence of things you can become more resilient when you encounter unpleasant experiences. When you let go of judging the situations you find yourself in—disappointing, resentful, sad—you will realize everything in life is temporary.
When you say these words to yourself, you also learn to accept, and not to resist, whatever you may be facing in life.
At a deeper level, if you can realize that life is impermanent, the better off you will be. Letting go of the struggle to control the outcome and allowing it to happen—just as it is—makes life easier.
So the next time things don’t go your way, remind yourself of these things and “this too shall pass.”Use it as a mantra. You will find your circumstances, or at least parts of them, will change fairly quickly.
Writing a book and having it published was one of the most challenging, yet rewarding, accomplishments I’ve ever taken on. During the span of time it took, I found the project presented many opportunities for me to learn a few valuable lessons.
When I began to consider the idea over seven years ago, the topic focused primarily on the period between my two divorces and twenty-eight days in rehab—when I had my spiritual awakening. After several years of stopping and starting over and over again, something began to stir within me that bubble upped new thoughts, emotions, and ideas.
Initially, I became a student of Caroline Myss to heal nerve pain caused by a lightning strike that occurred many years earlier. However, after examining my interior world and doing the inner work, I noticed that I began to change. Fascinated with the scope of Myss’s practice, I realized I needed to delve deeper into it. After hearing another lecture on Sacred Contracts, I came home and pulled the book from my shelf. Thumbing through it, I noticed I had stopped short of the section on Archetypes.
What were these things called archetypes? Unaware of what exactly they were, I deemed it necessary to become versed in them. Synchronicity befell me when I told a friend that very thing, and the next day I received a catalog indicating Myss was holding a workshop entitled, “The Power of Archetypes.” After the seminar, I decided archetypes, with their shadow and light aspects, would be a theme throughout my book.
One thing I knew for sure was that I could write—I just didn’t know how good it was. Having no one to evaluate my writing, when Lois from The Happy Self-Publisher said, after reading several pages I had written, that my words pulled her into my world, and that my writing was good, I became inspired. The drive to complete the project became instilled within me. After Caroline Myss told me my work was very good and that my story was interesting, I went into overdrive. It was the extra affirmation that compelled me onward.
The stage was set for my school of life matriculation.
Go wherever life takes you.
The first lesson I learned was that you must go wherever life takes you and not hold onto where you think you should be. I had to let go of the original idea for the book and allow my life to unfold and follow wherever it led me, which is simple, but not easy to do. This lesson guided me on a five-year journey where I learned that many of my experiences had names for them.
An example is in the few months right before I hit my rock bottom. As I wrote about it, I had no idea I had entered what is called the “dark night of the soul,” where the meaning and conceptual framework I had given my life utterly collapsed around me. All I knew is that I identified myself through the marriage (as Mrs. John Doe), and when the marriage ended, I ended. It was a kind of death, the death of my egoic self. Ultimately, after hitting rock bottom and then seeking treatment, a more profound sense of purpose where my life was not dependent on explanations.
Through this experience, I discovered I was the Wounded Healer, an archetype that emerged in my psyche with the demand that I push myself to a level of inner effort that became more a process of transformation than an attempt to heal my traumatic wounds. In doing so, I was able to transcend my own pain and suffering and realize there is a choice in healing. The experience gave me the skills and knowledge to impart to other wounded souls and led to the divinely provided path of service I perform today.
Not everything goes your way…
Another lesson I learned is that not everything goes your way, especially when you don’t make the right choices. Not every decision I made when writing Struck by Lightning was a good one. Because I failed to research a particular business, I made an unwise choice that set me back financially over $8,700 and delayed its publication for over six months. These rash choices resulted in a lesson learned the hard way: patience.
Although I have never given birth, I feel writing is analogous to the gestation period and publishing to giving birth. Imagine having to carry a baby for a few extra months. Most women, I believe, would be extremely impatient waiting for the baby to be born. Day in and day out, I was tested to accept where I was in the process because I needed to learn patience. You know the old saying, “When you pray for patience, you’ll receive opportunities to practice it,” like getting stuck in traffic or choosing the wrong line to stand in.
In my case, pay for the entire process of formatting and editing all over again!
During this critical stage, I felt victimized, cheated, and resentful—my vulnerability challenged. Fear of rejection and the inability to healthily control my emotions due to not being heard (the Invisible Child archetype) began to permeate my psyche. I was lost and felt like giving in. However, remembering the prior endorsements, my persistence and tenacity took over and empowered me to complete the project. Even though it took more time and finances, what I gained was priceless—that the experience of failure can be a major thoroughfare to success.
The joy of writing.
One of the joys my writing elicited were the responses of those who read Struck by Lightning. I was able to describe my emotions and communicate them is such a way that the reader felt their feelings arise. Without knowing how to or deliberately focusing on this, I learned I was given this gift.
My journey of writing a book mirrors my journey of life. There are twists and curves at every corner you encounter, some positive, some negative. When I stood at each turning point, in life or when writing, I faced each one, deciding to empower myself instead of caving in. Writing a book helped me grow, as well as fueling the process for that growth.
When I sit back and review what I experienced in the past seven or eight years, it is nothing short of magical. I gained experiences I never thought I would, and for that, I am eternally grateful. My gratitude extends to various people who are central in my life, and those who have been a part of it at some point or other, even if fleeting. For without everything I experienced, without every decision and choice I made, my book—and myself—would not be what we are today.
The Spiritual Path is the pursuit of self-knowledge. Included in this pursuit is to keep learning what is the truth, not about you, but about life. It’s understanding the Mystical Laws of the Universe. One of the laws you must learn and put into practice is the Law of Gravity.
To understand how the Law of Gravity can function symbolically requires your mind to perceive beyond reason and logic. Gravity comes from the Latin word, gravitas, that means, “weight, seriousness, or heaviness.”
It can be said that Isaac Newton not only made a scientific discovery in identifying the Law of Gravity, but also a mystical one when he was given a glimpse into the oneness of the universe. He saw “into the whole” on that one day in his life and noted that all things are subject to one law, related to weight and force.
This law is also the Law of Psychic Weight; it’s not only what you give your energy to, it’s what you attach yourself to—possessions, traditions, power habits. You give weight to them.
The choices you make in life help to create the person you become. Are you someone who says, “You can’t use that tone of voice with me” or “You can’t talk that way to me”? These are totally subjective words that you’ve given gravity to and until now has had no meaning in your life. It is best to let it go.
Other “gravity” anchors, markers in the timeline of your life in which you freeze a part of your energy into “matter,” that weigh you down are the result of bad experiences, traumas, or unfinished power plays that need a resolution at some future point in time. They’re also the resentments, anger, and fears that you’ve held onto for years.
The choices you make have consequences. Do you want to hold on to the choices that weigh you down and anchor you, where its memory is burned into your cell tissue and DNA, or not?
The more attachments you have, the more you create psychic weight. Think of all the attachments you have that prevent you from being spontaneous. This psychic weight prevents manifestation and healing. In other words, the heavier you weigh psychically, the longer you have to wait to manifest or heal.
WEIGHT = WAIT
The speed at which events happen is proportionate to the rate at which you can respond or heal.
Do you want to pull up your anchors? Do you want to see and breathe the power of the Law of Gravity? If your answer is yes, just work on it for one month by hitting a pause button, asking yourself, “Do I really want to say that?” or “Do I really want to act this way?”
And Buddha said, “The root of suffering is attachment.”
Writing in a journal about your thoughts, feelings, dreams, images, and physical sensations trains you to pay attention to these ways you receive inner guidance. Keeping a written record is one of the best ways to begin trusting and developing your intuition. It’s a tool for self-discovery.
One of the first things that happens when you write down your observations is that you begin to know yourself better; you get a deeper sense of who you are and are able to explore and unlock your unconscious, revealing hidden aspects.
You also train yourself to pay attention by writing things down. You may get a sudden thought or an urge to do something, like take another route home. If you don’t heed these impressions or cues, you’ll dismiss them as insignificant. But this is exactly the manner in which intuition speaks to you; it is subtle and understated.
Recognizing intuitions when they happen takes discipline.
Everyone is born knowing, having an intricate and highly tuned inner GPS. There are different ways to recognize these messages; you may feel them (clairsentience), you may see them (clairvoyance), or you may hear them (clairaudience).
The key here is to write them down as soon as possible so you have a record where you can revisit them, strengthening your awareness of your intuition and seeing it working in your life. By journaling its presence, you allow intuition to become more evident and influential in your experience.
Discover your intuitive style.
Writing down your messages helps you uncover the major ways you receive them. Some people receive communication through dreams and images, while others through thoughts, feelings, and physical sensations. You may even have a combination of them.
By keeping track of the subtle ways your intuition comes through, you get a sense of your intuitive style, making it easier to recognize it in the future.
There are many benefits to keeping a journal and recording your intuitive messages. They include stress reduction, healing, knowing yourself better, growth, and enhancing your intuition and creativity. The following list contains more specific advantages for employing this tool:
Reduces the scatter in your life
Detaches and lets go of the past
Balances and harmonizes
Reveals your greater potential
Clarifies thoughts, feelings and behavior
Helps you get rid of the masks you wear
Creates more results in life
Explores your spirituality
Improves self-trust and intuition
Awakens the inner voice
Provides insights
Don’t Know Where to Start?
Just jump in! Get yourself a notebook or a journal (it doesn’t have to be fancy) and a pen or pencil and beginning writing. Ask yourself some thought-provoking questions and ideas. Here are a few:
How can I get more stillness and serenity in my life?
List 5 things every day you are grateful for.
What do I criticize and judge others for?
What major blocks need to be resolved?
What excuses keep me stuck?
List three great ideas or creative things you’ve thought of.
When am I my happiest, saddest?
Journaling with intention and purpose has more uses and benefits than any other tools we know. It can truly help us make sense of our world.
Take a leap of faith. Commit to journaling so you can uncover your own inner wisdom.
The Wizard of Oz is a great example of Joseph Campbell’s, The Hero’s Journey, and the Four Survival Archetypes. The archetypes, the Child, the Prostitute, the Saboteur, and the Victim, are all involved in and symbolize our significant life challenges related to survival.
Each one represents concerns, issues, fears, and vulnerabilities that cause you to negotiate away your spirit’s power in the physical world. They must be confronted and overcome and made into allies to become your guardians. They will preserve your integrity and not allow you to bargain it away for your survival.
In her book, Sacred Contracts, Caroline Myss compares these four archetypes to a table’s four legs. The table legs represent your relationship to the ground beneath your feet and to the universal energy that supports your life. They need to be stable to support the weight of the tabletop—our life and mission.
Despite the connotation of their names, the four survival archetypes are neutral and are the intimate companions of your intuition.
The Child archetype resides in everyone and is the first archetype you identify. Therefore it is your beginning point. This archetype sets up our earliest perceptions of life, safety, loyalty, and family, and its core issue is dependency and responsibility.
Its many aspects include the Wounded Child, the Abandoned or Orphan Child, the Dependent Child, the Innocent Child, the Nature Child, and the Divine Child.
Regardless of which aspect of the Child you relate to most intimately, this archetypal pattern brings you to meet your guardian of innocence. The Child helps heal, repair, and teach you what you need to care for in yourself.
In the Wizard of Oz, Dorothy—the Child archetype and looks for attention as she struggles to be heard and recognized by the adults (the child seeking self-authority, responsibility).
The Saboteur archetype, neutral energy within you, makes itself known mostly through disruptions, and its purpose is to help you learn the many ways you undermine yourself. The Saboteur’s fears and issues are all related to low self-esteem that causes you to make choices that block your own empowerment and success.
You can silence the Saboteur with acts of courage and by following your intuition. This is done through gut instincts that direct you to take action based on hunches rather than logic. To learn to experience that voice, you must respond to it. Start with making small choices.
The Saboteur’s core issue is fear of inviting change into your life, a change that requires responding positively to opportunities to shape and deepen your spirit. The choice to respond to an inner voice that directs you to pursue your spiritual life is obviously one that can rearrange your familiar world.
The Scarecrow—the Saboteur, points in one direction and then another because he can’t make up his mind. He is stuck on a pole and announces that he’s a failure because he hasn’t got a brain. This is the Saboteur in the shadow aspect.
The Prostitute archetype, although not thought of in kindly terms, is also neutral energy within you. We learn the great gift of never again compromising our body, mind, or spirit from this archetype. The Prostitute comes into play when our survival is threatened.
Its core issue is how much you are willing to sell of yourself—your morals, your integrity, your intellect, your word, your body, or your soul—for the sake of physical security. The Prostitute archetype also dramatically embodies and tests the power of faith. If you have faith, no one can buy you.
Confronting the
Prostitute within you transforms this archetype into your guardian. It will watch over your relationship to faith by awakening you to situations where you must decide to “take up your bed and walk,” and lasting transformation can occur.
The Tin Man—the Prostitute—is standing alone in a forest, frozen and unable to speak. The Tin Man complains that he hasn’t got a heart and sings about how loving he would be if he had one. He could then love freely without becoming frozen in fear. The heart here is symbolic of his faith in himself.
The Victim archetype, like the other three survival archetypes, is an energy pattern that provides you with an opportunity to stand up to your fears. It may manifest the first time you don’t get what you want or need, or you’re accused or punished for something you didn’t do.
The victim’s core issue is whether it’s worth giving up your own sense of empowerment to avoid taking responsibility for your independence. Its primary objective is to develop self-esteem and personal power. When you’re in a situation where you feel threatened, take notice of that reaction physically, emotionally, and mentally. That is the intuitive voice of your inner Victim.
The Cowardly Lion becomes the Bully/Coward archetype but quickly transitions to the fourth and final Survival Archetype—the Victim. He claims he has no courage and is, therefore, always the Victim. He complains about how unbearable his life has been (seeking pity—shadow) and wants to be given courage so he can be victorious (light).
In conclusion, the Child, the Saboteur, the Victim, and the Prostitute are the intimate companions of your intuition. They make you conscious of your vulnerabilities, your fear of being victimized and allow you to see how you sabotage your dreams. These four archetypes will become your guardians, preserving your integrity and refusing to allow you to negotiate it away under any circumstances. They will allow you to become completely self-reliant; through them, you will come to see options where others see excuses.
The more conscious you can remain about the archetypal patterns influencing your behavior, the more likely your choices and lessons will be positive. If your choices are made unconsciously, and you act defensively and fearfully, you may not learn and grow as you should. Hopefully, you will learn from them.
In our journey through life, we all encounter moments when we need to mend the fabric of our existence. For me, alcohol wasn’t the root issue; it was merely a symptom. The true challenge lay within – a spiritual bankruptcy that needed addressing. It’s not just those battling addiction who require upliftment; everyone benefits from support at some point.
The divine inspiration of the 12 steps channeled through Bill W. and Dr. Bob provides a transformative path when followed sequentially. Each step aligns with a fundamental principle crucial to its effectiveness.
At the forefront is the principle of acceptance. Acknowledge your powerlessness over people, places, things, and situations. Embrace the idea that everything unfolds for a purpose, and true happiness lies in relinquishing expectations and the need to understand every twist of fate.
Consider these common scenarios in life:
Have you been betrayed by a spouse or significant other?
Are you misunderstood for something you did or said?
Have you lost someone close to you that you loved?
Were you ever unfairly terminated or fired from a job?
Have you gone through a bitter break-up or divorce?
Have you been falsely accused of something you didn’t do?
These experiences are part of life’s tapestry; while you may encounter one or more, acceptance is the key. You don’t have to like the situation, but accepting it paves the way for a smoother journey.
Take the loss of a loved one, for instance. Constantly dwelling on the unfulfilled future and seeking answers to unanswerable questions disrupts your peace. The real challenge is accepting change, not the loss itself.
Remember,You cannot change anything but yourself.
Acceptance is the first gift bestowed upon those committed to healing. It marks the beginning of your life’s transformative journey.
“And acceptance is the answer to all my problems today.
When I am disturbed,
It is because I find some person, place, thing, situation —
Some fact of my life — unacceptable to me,
And I can find no serenity until I accept
That person, place, thing, or situation
As being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment.
Nothing, absolutely nothing happens in God’s world by mistake.
Until I could accept my alcoholism, I could not stay sober;
Unless I accept life completely on life’s terms,
I cannot be happy.
I need to concentrate not so much
On what needs to be changed in the world
As on what needs to be changed in me and in my attitudes.”
Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th Edition p. 417
Are you having trouble accepting things in your life?
and to the universal energy that supports your life. They need to be stable to support the weight of the tabletop—our life and mission.
