I facilitate a group of spiritual, empowered, amazing people on Facebook in a private group called The Aligned Beaconhood. Right now we are in the midst of doing a 30-day gratitude challenge. I love this for so many reasons but mostly because as we enter into the holiday season it’s easy to get wrapped up in all the flurry and frenzy and lose sight of the love that surrounds us. What better way to stay grounded then to lean into gratitude each and every day?
Today’s prompt was about finding gratitude for a past moment in life that we thought at the time might ruin us. You know those times I’m talking about. I’ve had my fair share and some are more painful than others. For this prompt I really wanted people to see the blessing in a major life blunder. Hindsight is 20/20 and with time we are able to see the beauty, gift, and blessing buried deep within whatever crap we experienced. We notice, eventually, we no longer feel intense emotion around them. Instead, we feel peace in our body. To me, this signifies that we have processed, healed, and evolved through whatever contrast it was.
Yet, as we engage in daily life, we can lose sight of the gift that each experience brings us. We react instead of responding. In a perfect world, or maybe when we are coming from a really aligned place, we can tap into that peace and knowing as the crap rolls out. It’s easier when life throws us smaller balls of contrast. When we get served a major ball of contrast we become very human and can seem to get swallowed up. We get lost. We lost sight of the bigger picture. I believe the more we engage in transforming past experiences from seeing them through the lens of resentment, anger, disappointment, etc. to a lens of the blessing, the gift, the purpose the better skilled we become at living in the now. With better skills, more awareness, and a remembering of the great game of life we don’t lose ourselves (as much) in the contrast. Rather, we can witness, recall, and trust. Those major blunders still burn and create intense emotion but our recovery back to knowing that everything has a purpose is faster and we feel better as we trudge through the muck and fog.
For the post I shared my experience of being fired. I had a career as a classroom teacher, literacy coach, and assistant principal in various middle and high schools. My LIFE was my career. My identify was so closely tied, enmeshed really, to what I did that when I lost my job, I lost my sense of self. I’ll never forget the day I knew I was going to be fired. It was an October day when I decided to express my feelings of discontent and disgust, in a very direct, intense way, to my principal. I had uncovered some really questionable (read: illegal) practices being implemented with African American students. I was enraged to be completely honest. Being the highly moral person I am I felt I had no other choice than to address the situation with the man in charge. I knew as soon as the words, “this practice is deeply racist and negatively impacts one of the most vulnerable populations of students in the school and you’re the ringleader” left my mouth my job was in the trash.
As I left his office I couldn’t believe what happened. I was in shock that I said what I said. “Where did it all come from?” I asked myself. I was satisfied with myself to a small degree that I had stood up for what I believed to be ethical behavior. I felt my integrity was intact and that felt good. But mostly I was like my life is ending. I remember driving home and repeating to myself, this has to be happening for a reason… this HAS to be happening for a reason!
In natural human form as I said it I didn’t fully believe it. Regardless, I forced myself to continue the mantra because anything else simply created too much fear. I battled myself. Thoughts ranging from, “what is going to happen with your life, what the hell did you just do, you’ve lost your mind, Annie” to “this has purpose, this is happening for a reason, it will be okay.” The former made me want to jump out of my skin and disappear forever and the latter allowed me to breathe. I had started a war in my own head and was deep in the trenches. It was painful and lengthy.
My only saving grace was forcing myself to believe that everything happens for a reason. Moment by moment, day after day, month by month, I repeated it to myself. I repeated it and repeated it until I felt a sense of peace. I cried, threw temper tantrums, felt all the fear, and then repeated it. I repeated it until I could accept what had happened without feeling like I was going to die. Literally. Once I allowed myself to trust in something greater than me at play I opened up to a space of greater clarity and some inspiration to move forward with my life. The surrender process was a beast and I surrendered.
Of course, as life would have it, it did happen for a reason. It carried great purpose. It propelled me to who I am today, a person who is genuinely happy, living a life that’s truly aligned with my passions and interests, and a woman who now has a knowing that most of life’s events can’t shake. It pushed me step into the unknown, to get honest with what I really desired for my life, and to muster up the courage to make it happen. It shattered me and then built me anew.
As we navigate through the Now and the crap of life creeps to the surface I encourage you to reach for the knowing that life is happening for you, even when it makes no sense. Especially when it makes no sense! If you’re in that place today where life seems to be happening outside of you and you’re just being pulled along for the ride, not knowing what on earth is happening, sit down with yourself. Engage in a practice of recalling past times in your life when you found yourself feeling a similar way. Tell the story from the perspective you have now, piece together the events that occurred with greater understanding, and remind yourself that life always has a way of working itself out. It is always working in your favor. And, you open yourself up to greater self-compassion. You learn how to hold yourself, soothe yourself, and be gentle with yourself. That alone is a major win.
As the holidays approach and emotions run high so much shit can come to the surface. Things happen that leave us feeling similarly to how I felt above: lost. Gift yourself the peace you know deserve. Dig deep into the knowing that life does work out through remembering your own journey, your own resiliency. You don’t need to understand it all to trust in the love of life. Just remember it will be fine. Hell, it might be better than fine, it might be super!
