Good morning! You just never know what lies around the next bend in this river called life. Your entire world can shift in the blink of an eye, represented by a turn in the river, and you can be faced with multiple choices, represented by forks in the river. How you react to those changes dictates how you navigate them. Yesterday my wife was laid off. A pretty significant bend in the river I would say. While the focus of this post is on my reactions to this news, I dont want to take away from the shock and grief my wife experienced at being laid off from a job she had been doing for nearly 10 years. It was a hard blow for her, but like the true trooper she is, she had already flipped it by the time I got home yesterday. She has an incredible inner strength and such a positive outlook on life that while this was a blow to her, she is already looking on the bright side of it. Me? I am not normally quite as adept at handling such situations. I like to explain it like this: If I walk into a wall, I am prone to step back and spend a great deal of time pondering the great mysteries of why this wall was placed in my way. If my wife were to walk into the same wall, she would step back, shake her head once and then walk around it and continue on her way. Shes wonderful that way. One of my nicknames for her is Pollyanna. My normal reaction, however, would be quite different. My normal reaction to news like this would be to assume the fetal position in the middle of the floor and proceed to sink into a very deep well of worry and self-pity. I can hear the thoughts now: Oh no! What are we going to do? How are we going to make it? Why is this happening to me/us? and a whole slew of other negative thoughts that would make the most pessimistic person in the world to tell me to lighten up! Not yesterday. When I first got the text from Renee telling me she had been laid off, my blood ran cold, my gut clenched and I felt the chill of anxiety begin to ripple through me. For about 10 seconds I was freaking out. Then I remembered my training. The wonderful lessons and tools I had learned from SOS@Zacs Ridge. I stopped, took a very deep breath, used my bridge word (one of the new tools I learned) and repeated my contract to myself a couple of times. My contract with myself is: I am a worthy, strong, compassionate and talented man. Then, just as quickly as the old reactions began, they stopped. A calm passed over me and, somehow, I knew everything was going to be all right. Sure, we may have to make some changes in our lifestyle for a bit, but we were going to be ok. I realized, on a base level, that there was no point in getting upset and worrying about events that were in the future and may not even come to pass. It is absolutely pointless to worry about a frame of time that has yet to come about. Its like my pondering why the wall was placed in my way. The wall is the wall and it was placed there for a reason. Thats all the thought it deserves. Just walk around the damned thing and go on about your life. My focus shifted from what might happen to what was happening right here... right now. We were going to be ok. My wife is a very intelligent and talented woman. There are a great number of things she can do and all of them have the potential of earning an income. I am a firm believer that when God closes one door, Hes opening up another one that you would not have seen had the first door not shut. Perhaps her being laid off was the nudge she needed to strike out on her own. True to form, when I arrived home yesterday, she was already thinking along those lines. Thats my girl!! The other part of my decision to calm down was for her. While she is strong and could weather this on her own, part of being married, of being a team, is not having to. She needed me to be strong, positive and supportive. She didnt need to coach herself through this trial AND deal with me in the throes of a pity-party. While I am extraordinarily proud of my wifes resolution, strong will and positive outlook, I am also equally proud of myself. I was able to head off my old reactions, stop them and flip them around. Such a thing would have been impossible for me just a few short months ago and it speaks to how far Ive come on this journey. It hints at even greater things to come which excites me to no end. Also, being proud of myself is something I would not have done a few short months ago. The true test came this morning when I awoke. Would my resolution hold? Would I still be as positive as I had been yesterday? The answer is yes! Even more so than yesterday. Again... were going to be ok. We will put our heads together and we will figure this out and we will come out of this stronger than before. I came through this experience with a newfound confidence in what I have learned about myself and how to combat the negatives. How to stop me from sabotaging myself. Please understand that it was not nearly as easy as this post makes it sound. That initial 10 seconds lasted a very long time and the battle to catch myself and make myself change course was exceedingly difficult, but I did it! Thats the point I want to make. Despite some deep rooted reactions that have been with me all my life I was able to flip it! The training actually works! After that initial 10 seconds passed, I was thinking, Ill be damned! It (the tools) actually work! The other thing that I want to share is the benefit of living in the moment, not the past or the future, but the here and now. Renee and I have made a bend in the river of our lives together. Before us lie multiple forks... multiple opportunities. While such a thing sounds terrifying, and I will admit to a certain amount of fear in the face of such uncertainty, I am so very excited! For the first time in my life, not knowing what tomorrow will bring is actually exciting! Sure, there are a million bad things that could happen. Conversely, there are a million wonderful things that could happen as well. Thats the beauty of it. You just never know! It all comes down to how you view the forks in your river. Will you focus on the negatives or will you focus on the positives. There are equal numbers of both and its ultimately up to you how you will navigate the bends and forks of the river of your life. For the first time in nearly 50 years of life I choose the positives. I choose to look upon the unfamiliar landscape ahead of us with hope, delight and wonderment. The child in me is absolutely giddy at the prospect of exploring a new area. It also occurs to me that if you go into such explorations of a new region of your life with such a positive and excited outlook that maybe, just maybe, youll influence how the events will transpire. Its been my experience that if you look for the bad, more times than not you will find it. So why wouldnt the same be true for the reverse? I think Im going to find out! Enjoy this wonderful day folks! Its the only one like it youre going to get. I chose to face this sunrise with hope and optimism. Even if the path doesnt play out like I imagine it will, theres always the opportunity to flip it, to make it what I want it to be. I will no longer be a victim of life. I will no longer let my inclination toward the negative become a self fulfilling prophecy. I will make this new inclination toward the positive become my new self fulfilling prophecy. Were going to be just fine! How about you? Are you going to be fine today? Im not talking about if you were fine yesterday, thats history. Im not asking if youll be fine tomorrow, its not here yet and, truthfully, may not come. Im asking if youre going to be fine TODAY? How do you eat an apple? Do you try to stick the whole thing in your mouth or do you take it a bite at a time? Life is an apple! Eat it one bite at a time. And dont just eat it one bite at a time, but take the time to savor and enjoy each bite. Have a great day everybody! It can be glorious and wonderful if you let it be. Now, it youll excuse me, I have a bite of apple to take. Love, Me!
Posted on: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 11:32:41 +0000
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