Because sh*t happens no matter what…don’t stop moving

It was never my m.o. to move through the struggles. I took pride in the pain and the take down.

Ego ran my life.

I fought as hard as I could, pushed back harder, and tried to deny any form of help that came my way only to crash and burn with no choice BUT to stop for a reset. Something inside me felt validated in the battle as if it was my duty to ‘give it everything I had’ with little to no belief that there was another way.

It feels like a lifetime ago now that this was my reality…wow. It’s really no wonder why I also battled with depression, obesity, and chronic illness at the time!

It doesn’t have to be that way

I vividly remember being in class one day at USM (University of Santa Monica, a school specifically focused on the study of Spiritual Psychology) and hearing one of my instructors guide a fellow classmate through a process…

“You know, when you make a request from Spirit for clearing, you can add that you would prefer it to be gentle and one that will allow you to keep flowing through life. Every clearing process does not have to knock you down.”

WAH?!?!? You mean I don’t have to crash and burn to learn the lesson?

You mean I could actually create a change process that is soothing and nourishing INSTEAD of hitting the speed bump full force?!?! Well that changes everything I ever thought to be true. What would my future even look like if I accepted this as truth?

The lesson: you don’t have to have a breakdown to have a breakthrough.

When I heard Gary Vaynerchuk say that in order to succeed we must learn to ‘fix the plane mid-air,’ it ALL made sense.

There’s a HUGE difference between successful people and wannabe’s:

Successful people have learned that life happens FOR them.

Wannabe’s believe that life happens TO them.

This shift in mindset will mean the difference between your ability to move through the pain or own it as your identity. You choice in perception will show you where you really want to be in life as you’ll prioritize the perception that supports how you view reality.

I was a victim therefore I chose the notion that life was happening TO me. I believed that life was waging a war against me, that I had to fight for my survival, and that I did not have a choice as to my fate. I let life knock me down and formed my story around the battle scars.

If someone ‘cut me off’ on the freeway, I took it personally. If someone was having a bad day, I also took that personally. How dare they come in here with their bad attitude, spewing negativity all around and bringing us all down…sheesh.

How negative was I?!?!

I was like a walking time bomb waiting for the next trigger to set me off…tick…tick…tick…

But I was open. Somehow I just knew that life didn’t have to be that way. I watched successful people, studying Wayne Dyer and Lama Surya Das, and did the inner work. I was committed to ending this personal pity party within myself so I could feel like I had even the smallest amount of control in my life.

The one thing successful people had that I didn’t: they didn’t accept the status quo as the only option. They CREATED their own change through their perception that life is happening FOR them, not TO them.

BOOM!!! That was the real truth bomb I needed to break down my wall.

Successful people don’t sit around with the ‘Oh, poor me’ syndrome, waiting to be saved or taken down by yet another wave of seemingly bad luck. Nope. They stand up, do it anyway and say, ‘Great! Another wave. How can I ride this to victory?”

This is what I believe Gary Vaynerchuk meant with fixing the plane mid-air: the ability to see a problem, find a way to use it to one’s advantage, and not skip a beat in momentum.

If we EVER hope to create something great in life, we’ve got to stop defining ourselves by the breakdowns and start searching for more breakthroughs. We need to stop actively seeking ways to prove how miserable our lives are. We need to wake up to the potential instead of keeping score on the failures. Success is a by-product of excellence in habit…not in the search for perfection. The more we commit to growth through excellence, the more life will BECOME the ally we need TO grow.

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. -Will Durant

We’ve got to get over this whiny entitlement phase we are going through in order to stop being taken down every time something goes wrong.

Remember, it’s our perception OF a situation that determines how we’ll respond to it. So if you truly wish to conquer, you must first conquer how you perceive it. Sh*t will always happen but it’s up to you as to how you wish to be a victim to it or use it as a tool for your growth. Choose wisely, friends.