Sometimes life sends us those small annoying storms—the lost phone, the bad hair coloring job, the cranky kids. And sometimes the storms are more significant milestones—a real loss, a diagnosis, a deeper disappointment or betrayal.
When life comes along with her thunder and lightening, we can bristle and push the experience away. The dominant thinking is that this isn’t how life’s “supposed to be”. Well, I don’t know about you, but for me–I can bristle all I want and that actually doesn’t make the unwanted experience stop. In fact, it just adds another layer of agony and suffering on top of the already difficult moment.
So, as the strong winds rattled my windows this week, I realized I needed to go to the BAR. No, not THE bar (although sometimes, yes :). This BAR: Breathing more deeply, Accepting what is happening (even if I don’t like it), and using my Resources. The BAR.
The first two components–Breath and Acceptance–lift the clouds from our thinking so that we can see we with more clarity. It releases the resistance to the flow of life. The clarity then positions us to be open to receive our Resources–a helping hand, a courageous decision, divine blessings of the highest order and so on. All with a healthy dose of wisdom and gratitude.
We can count on the fact that life will consistently give us more opportunities to practice how to weather the storm. And when it does, get yourself to the BAR.