Turning Challenges into Opportunities

What do you do in the face of challenge and uncertainty?  Do you get immobilized by fear and sink into negativity? Or do you look at challenges as a springboard to opportunity and growth?

Our mindset in the face of challenge will dictate our experience of the challenge.  It always amazes me that in just a brief moment we can shift our perspective of a situation and completely transform the experience.  How amazing is that!  Such power we have moment by moment to shape our experiences in life.  No one has this control to create this shift but you.

If we look at your reaction to the economic changes--what perspective are you choosing?  Is it fear based - "The world is falling apart and it is just going to get worse - I am unsafe"  or "We are going through a huge transformation and I know wonderful things are going to come from it - I am excited to see what good will come from this."

One of my favorite Workshops that I conduct is "The Joy Workshop" One of the ideas that I talk about in the Workshop is how challenging people or events around us can be opportunities to practice staying in our own emotional state.  So many of us let situations and others around us determine how we feel moment by moment. 

Instead we all need to determine how we want to feel throughout the day and stick with this--NO MATTER WHAT.  To put it simply - do you want to be a Thermometer (mirroring the temperature of those around you) - or a Thermostat (putting your setting where you want it to be)?

Now more than ever this is something you can be practicing.  Decide what perspective you would like to take on what is happening in the economy - a fear perspective or a faith perspective.

One of the opportunities of this current transformation is that we can start to get more deeply that we are spiritual beings having a human experience.  Money and material items do not create safety and security for us. 

Our security is in the truth that we are eternal spiritual beings who are always safe each and every moment.  Harm can come to us on the physical level - but we cannot be harmed or destroyed on the spiritual level - this part of us lives on. 

So what if what we are going through is a transformation - a spiritual awakening -  an opportunity to connect more deeply with who we truly are.  Those that open up to this will have an amazing experience and those that resist the opportunity will  continue to struggle.  We are all called right now to step out of our stuck patterns of trying to create safety with the patterns of our wounded self - and asked to move more into the light and love of who we are. 

I remember attending a Workshop were the presenter gave this quote "Most people think they are drowning in an ocean of water - when in reality they are just in a wading pool."  

So don't buy into the current belief that right now we are all drowning in an ocean of crisis - instead remind yourself and others that we are in a wading pool - and we are capable of navigating this calmly and successfully!

Copyright 2008