Do this ONE thing every day and you will find it hard to not be happy.

You Can Not Control What Happens, but You Do Your Response

You can not control what happens, but you can choose your response.

Photo by Romain Virtuel on Unsplash

Things happen to us every day. Emotions and feelings come and go. Events, circumstances, and conditions come and go. This too shall pass…

And somehow, some events and feelings have incredible power over us. Some, we actually become obsessed about. We get trapped and stuck. We become victims of our circumstances.

Our mind is fascinating… Did you notice how quickly you leave behind positive, healthy feelings and events?

We tend to obsess way more with the ones that do not match our expectations, those who tickle our fears and make us exposed and not in control.

In 2005, the National Science Foundation published an article summarising research on human thoughts per day. It was found that the average person has about 12,000 to 60,000 thoughts per day. Of those thousands of thoughts, 80% were negative, and 95% were precisely the same repetitive thoughts as the day before.

There was another interesting study (Leahy, 2005, Study of Cornell University) in which scientists found that 85% of what we ruminate about never happens. Secondly, with the 15% of the worries that did happen, 79% of the subjects discovered that either they could handle the difficulty better than expected or that the difficulty taught them a lesson worth learning that served them in future situations.

So, then, why do we ruminate? Why can we not stop thinking about what someone said, did? Why do we vent, rant, complain, judge, and criticise?

1. Because we want to control IT. You want things to go back as they were. Everything that is out of order must return to the order in your head and has to be controlled. Only when things will go the way you want them, only then will they make sense. So we want to control people, circumstances, and conditions, and we expect it all to go our way. And don’t beat yourself up… you are in good company, as everyone around you does the same.
2. When things stubbornly refuse to go as we want, we resist even more and become increasingly miserable, sad, and depressed. And we tell ourselves that it’s unfair because we just want to be happy. Actually, your actions say otherwise. You bring yourself down by focusing on what you don’t wish to happen and obsessing about what you want to control. Simply put, you believe that things and people make you unhappy, which is inaccurate. You bring yourself down because of your thoughts about people and things.
3. In the end, you start attracting more of that. Think about it. When was the last time you were miserable, frustrated, and angry? What were you focusing on? Did you feel that everything was annoying you, everyone was out to get you? How long were you in that state, and how did you snap out of it?

Then the real question is… Can we stop? Can we get better? Can we create an effortless stream of positive thoughts, snapping quickly out of rumination, worry and victim state and overcome the natural tendency to cling to negativity?

One thing is for sure, we can not stop something from happening or people from being, BUT we get to CHOOSE. From the multitude of thoughts, feelings, emotions, and events in a day, we can choose which to focus on and let go of the rest. You can control your feelings by controlling your thoughts. Becoming free and happy involves learning to think about situations differently. Go back to your breath and bring yourself to the present moment.

If you find yourself in paradise, it wont be long before your mind would say “yes, but…”. Ultimately, this is not about solving your problems, its about realising there are no problems. Only situations — to be dealt with now, or to be left alone and accepted as part of the “isness” of the present moment until they change or can be dealt with. Problems are mind-made and need time to survive. They cannot survive in the actuality of Now. Focus on the Now and tell me what problems you have in this moment. The Power of Now, Eckhart Tolle.

So, what will you focus on today? Can you choose?

Hi there, I’m Alina 😊. I am a coach and a mentor and I write about personal growth, leadership, awareness and the power of radical inquiry. If you would like to receive daily thought-provoking content, join my email list. If you are interested in coaching, drop me a comment.