“When the student is ready the teacher will appear.” Buddah.
Hello, My friends,
Life is a teacher, and we are the students. Now that’s a bold statement.
It’s a statement I am learning to embrace in my life.
Life has a way of getting our attention.
I believe life wants us to actually live. Most of us go through our lives in a fog, dragging ourselves through one activity to the next, plodding on, each day the same as the day before, knowing that our tomorrows will be the same as today. We hurry through today to get to the “prize” that tomorrow promises, to find there is no “prize” or the satisfaction we desired from the”prize” doesn’t fulfill what we hoped it would.
I believe life wants us to feel, to enjoy, to have pleasure in the mundane things, to be aware of our surroundings.
As a teacher, life will use whatever is at hand.
If you’ve read any of my previous posts you will be aware that I believe that our thoughts create our feelings, which create our actions, which create our lives.
It is true, if you’re going to state something, you’d better be prepared to be tested on it.
My test arrived this week in the shape of a small five year old, male child. If you are a parent, you probably can relate, children have the uncanniest way of pushing buttons you never knew existed, or that you thought you’d sorted a long time ago.
Life put this small boy in my path this week, I believe to test me. It’s easy to spout words on a blank page, in front of a computer. It’s not so easy to live those words. I have to admit I struggled to sit with my anger when he defied my requests, to rephrase my remarks to create, rather than destroy. To find the good in the little lad when he was screaming the neighbourhood down in his full blown meltdown. What I did learn, was in any given moment I have a choice. I have the choice to respond or react. I can choose to act without thinking. ( And I did), or I can use the 5 sec rule, breathe in and breathe out, and then make a choice. (Which I also did.) Let the emotion of the moment settle. During the meltdown event, there were lots of moments, where I chose inaction over what my mind and body wanted to do. He survived, (maybe even thrived a little) this week with his Nana, and his Nana learned a lot about herself.
It’s not in the sunny days that we find who we are and what we’re made of. It’s in the hard times, the uncomfortable times, the times when everything seems to go wrong. It’s when life throws those curved balls. You know the ones, they make you re-evaluate: Where you’re heading? What your life is all about? What is a priority, and what isn’t? What can be eliminated? It may be an illness, or a relationship break down, or a financial event, a divorce, the loss of a loved one.
I believe life is trying to get our attention. The times in my life I have grown the most and changed as a woman were in the times of the greatest hard ship and heart ache. they were the times when my walls were at there weakest.
Sometimes we need a shake up to wake us from the fog of our lives.
Let life teach, everything that happens, happens for a reason. (Another bold statement, and I have no doubt there will be a strengthening event to see if I really mean it.)
Find the lesson in the event, investigate the options, look for things that may need to change, play with life a little, try the What if….. game.
What if…. I lost the weight and gained the health and vitality I want.
What if….I did that idea that seems a little crazy.
What if …. I followed the doctors instructions.
What if ….I joined a band, ..sang in the choir…took up cooking french cuisine.
What if…. I lived everyday to the fullest.
What if …. I dreamed a dream, then followed it.
What if … I stopped to cuddle a little five year old male child
Life is full of opportunities.
When you start asking what if? Let the teacher appear, take the action you know to do, watch your life change and evolve.
Thoughts become feelings, feelings become actions, actions become habits and then you have a new and exciting life.
Go out there and live yours, follow your heart, ask What if?
Be your authentic self, till next time
Linda Codlin