I’ve recently had the misfortune of an occurrence that means I am now living the adage: “into every life some rain must fall” with something unexpected and somewhat challenging occurring that is impacting me now and for a little time forwards.
I am grateful to feel well resourced within myself (as well as from family and friends, you know who you are and thank you x) to respond to this, with well over a decade of self-development both in developing my skills and abilities as a coach and out of a general desire to grow and learn. Today simply sharing one of those, which is simply this:
Be Grateful
This may seem counter-intuitive when some misfortune strikes us, but choosing an “attitude of gratitude” serves me very well in supporting my wellbeing.
As I’m not getting into detail about what is going on (such updates are for my inner “concentric circles”, another tool for managing wellbeing), perhaps easiest to understand what I am saying by considering what the opposite would look like. The opposite to gratitude would likely feel like “reacting” versus “responding”, would be something like “why is this happening to me?”, “what have I done to deserve this?” etc.
Not useful in the least. We are where we are and our power is in being present and how we choose to respond to anything that occurs. No matter the circumstance, no event, no misfortune, no person can “make” us feel anything, it is always in our power how we choose to respond.
Now, I’m not saying I will always feel “zen calm” at all times, but I do know I can always centre myself again relatively quickly by remembering a) I always have a choice of my response, and b) I choose to focus on what I can be grateful for.
By the way, as I write this it is a beautiful sunny and warm spring day today in London. It is simply gorgeous to have my office windows open and see and feel the warmth of the sun.