How To Be Happy With What Is- Especially while on lock down at home – Coronavirus edition
Written by Kate • March 26, 2020 •
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So many of us are caught up in what is lacking in our lives and we despair. Typically it’s about money, weight, relationship, and career. And we think it’s an external circumstance, something over which we have little to no control.
But this is not the truth. The truth is that what is happening in our lives are just circumstances. It is completely neutral. It’s our thoughts about them that we have control over and that make these neutral circumstances into something good or bad.
[ Side note: None of the following is really original. I’ve synthesized the following from teachers I really admire and follow, Brooke Castillo at the Life Coach School, Martha Beck, Eckhart Tolle, Christine Kane, and Gerald Epstein, MD. I’m writing this by standing on the shoulders of giants and great teachers.]
Example: Feeling A Lack Of Money
Let’s take an easy to understand and nearly universal worry- lack of money- as our example. So you’re in debt, you don’t have enough to pay your bills, and you look around and all you can think about is how much better life would be with more money. Those thought, that you need more money, that you don’t have what you need, that you’re stuck in lack makes you feel something along the lines of feeling angry, scared, and powerless about how to “get” more money in your life. By feelings those feelings, your resulting actions likely aren’t calm, powerful, focused or motivated. You’re likely stressed out and avoiding feeling your feelings and overeating, overdrinking, and using other buffering mechanisms to avoid what you think is your reality. And the result is likely a continuation of the same circumstances because you’re not feeling empowered or peaceful to try to truly address your desire for money.
Another Way To Be With Your Circumstances -Acceptance
So you don’t have enough money to pay your bills. This is truth. This is fact. It’s your current circumstance. The real power you have is how you think about this fact. You can either choose thoughts about your circumstance that empower and serve you or you can choose thoughts that disempower and don’t serve you. This is where your power lies.
Choose Thoughts That Empower You
Instead of feeling stressed and lack about your money, recognize that the outer circumstances in your life often reflect your inner life circumstances and in those circumstances lie gifts to awaken and teach you to greater truths about yourself and how the world operates. Often it boils down to the truth that you’re feeling lack so you’re outwardly experience lack.
And please be clear about what I’m saying. It’s not your “fault”. You’re not to blame and no one is saying you could have done better. Be clear that sometime the universe takes an opportunity to really grind you down and use your worst fears to help you learn a lesson that will ultimately free you and help you grow. But it’s not something you chose and it’s not something you need to feel bad about having in your life And you get to be scared and overwhelmed and worried and horrified as you confront some of your worst fears, that evoke shame, deep seated fears of not being enough, not being good enough, not having enough, and more. This is heavy stuff and not something to be trivialized. Give yourself total permission to feel all your feelings. Take the time you need to allow yourself a full freak out and be compassionate with yourself. The shizzle is getting real. After a bit of time being honest with yourself and your feelings, it’s time to start to use your superpowers to help you change your thoughts and the resulting feelings.
Just realize that your thoughts about your circumstances are all that you can control. it’s not your fault the coronavirus is ravaging the world. It’s not your fault you were raised in a family that taught that money is bad or that only evil people want to earn a lot of money. This is simply where you are. Be clear. Don’t blame and don’t avoid.
Once you can get clear, start to use your own superpower and begin to consciously upgrade the way you think about your outward circumstances. Perhaps you can start to honestly catalogue all the ways this lack of money has been helpful to you. For me, I see that when my cash flow got low, I saw how much power I gave to worry and stress over money and how much I relished being a victim of this. That I didn’t learn about money from my parents, that it wasn’t my fault and I needed to be rescued by someone outside of me. Every thought raced through my head -except the one that this was something I had the power to change.
Lack of money has also helped me be clear about how much fear I had around lack, how much money I was spending on non-essential items, and how much I was using avoidant behavior to not be truthful about how I could actually change my circumstance. And that I would sacrifice my happiness, my time, and autonomy on getting a job to bring in money, even if I hated the job. I gave my deep desire for money a lot of power in my life.
Can You Find Your Way to Being Grateful?
Truly, I’ve also gotten to the place where I’m grateful for when I’ve felt financial lack. (And I’ve definitely had moment of financial lack, big scary thoughts about it.) What can it teach you and how much more powerful are you once you’ve truly learned all that the lack of money can teach you?
For me, I’ve prayed for years for clarity of my mindset and to be shown all of my blind spots. ALL of them. Before my daily morning mediation, I ask the Divine Beloved to tear down the veil of my ignorance so that I can truly SEE. I’ve learned to be so grateful for the lack of financial abundance that can stick around for seemingly forever. I’ve gotten clear about the worst that can happen. I can go bankrupt. I can lose my house. And instead of being the image of financial success to my family and friends, I’d be an example of how to lose it all. I see that I care what people think and I want to considered a success by others in all thing.
I went all the way down the rabbit hole. So I could go bankrupt. What does that look like? How do I feel about it? I could lose my house. What does that look like? What would I do? I go to the worst case scenarios and I get clear about what can happen. And really it’s simply that I’ll have to feel feelings, like shame and fear. But I can handle that. I could handle starting over, if it were ever to come to that. And I’m so grateful for the clarity the truth brings.
Choosing Better Thoughts
After getting clear about how you’ve been thinking and starting to perhaps even be grateful for your circumstances, it’s now time to find better thoughts about what is happening to: empowering thoughts that serve you well. If better, more empowering thoughts initially elude you, then ask yourself empowering questions about the situation.
For example, you can’t think of a better thought around the pile of debt you have. So ask yourself a question that helps your mind do something for you. Your mind is constantly searching for what to do and how to get things done. So send it off to ponder on questions that will help you. Like: How can I think better about this? How can I invite more money into my life? What are things and feelings I can have or do that will help me? And then let your mind go and you likely will have great answers in short order, especially if you sleep on it. Boom, you’re awake and your mind will probably be serving you up answers to your empowering questions.
Better Thoughts Mean Better Feelings
Once you consciously choose different thoughts that serve and empower you around money, then the feelings that result from those thoughts will serve and empower you as well. If you have a thought like: money is just a circumstance and I can make changes in my life in ways I never considered, the feelings that follow will likely be calm, powerful, happy and inspired. This type of feeling will allow you to take more powerful, even inspired action on the issue. And you’ll get ideas about how to change (or accept) your circumstance.
Be Willing To Follow Through
Your mind may serve up thoughts: ideas and inspiration that scare the socks off of you. You’ll have to try something new. You’ll have to put yourself out there and you may get rejected, you may fail, and your family and friends may think you’re nuts. None of that matters. Understand that following through on the power of your inspiration is what will lead you to increasing amounts of joy in your life, a better feeling about your life, and likely to more abundance.
Savor the Journey
In this example, you desperately wanted more money. And you think you’ll only happen once you have all the money you wanted. But in reality, you can start to enjoy the feeling of having the money once you decide that you will have more money and allow it in.
Do you remember, as a child, how much you enjoyed the entire month of December because of the anticipation of Christmas Day? (for those of you who celebrated Christmas- use your memories of your birthday if that works better for you). The whole month, you dreamed of Christmas day. All the presents, the food, the magical day. And it really peaked on Christmas Eve, knowing Santa was riding out that night ready to give you presents. And how was Christmas Day? It was often pretty awesome but it never truly did compare to the anticipation, did it? The same will be when you have all the money you need. Enjoy the build up. Enjoy knowing that you’re going to have a lot of money in the same way you knew that you were going to be getting presents. There wasn’t any fear or desperation around Christmas. It was all joy and anticipation. That’s the feeling you’re going for so cultivate thoughts around money/abundance that give rise to joy and light anticipation.
Don’t Forget to Visualize
Visualization is a powerful tool. Find visualizations that work for you and make you feel light and airy and joyful. Don’t get bogged down in the details of how the money will arrive.
Some examples of visualizations for abundance or prosperity are:
Imagine a body of water so vast it’s all you can see. Feel the water. See it lapping at the shore at your feet. Then slip into the water and float in its vastness. Feel the water slip into your pores and maybe even drink it up. I personally slip under the water and feel it enter into my lungs and ears and my eyes. And then feel that the water is abundance and it is vast and surrounds you at all time. You just have to let it in.
One that really works for me is that I can see a rushing river of cash flowing down from some place in the sky into my left hand and a slightly smaller river flowing out my right hand. For me, I know that I’ll be spending and donating the money so allowing the energy of abundance flow though me. This gives me the joy and anticipation feelings I mention above.
Be sure to get the flutter of emotion that lets you know the visualization is locked in and feels true and exciting to your subconscious. Check out Epstein’s page for some great visualizations.
Call on the Divine Beloved
As always, ask for help and guidance. Pray for it. Ask for it. Follow the inspiration. Tosha Silver has some great prayers on asking for help from the Divine Beloved, if that’s your jam.
Follow the inspiration you get. That’s key. Don’t stay stuck with your statue quo. Be willing to do things differently.
Keep working on your thoughts
Of course, you’ll have to keep working on your thoughts when you notice thoughts arise that are disempowering. It’s natural that your brain will freak out about circumstances without training to think empowering thoughts. Notice when you have thoughts that don’t serve you. Change them up.
You got this. You can do it. It’s what you were born to do: learn from your circumstances and follow your heart.
