Problem or Possibility?
I’ve been having a week filled with messages: Message after message, all on the same topic. It’s as if someone up there is trying to deal with a lousy cell phone connection. Can you hear me now? Can you hear me NOW??
I know enough to know that when I get attempt after attempt, it’s urgent. It’s time to find a spot that gets reception and get the freakin' message.
And this is the message:
Focus on possibilities, not problems.
I will be very straight with you: This is not my natural default. I’m extremely adept at focusing on problems. I can think and think and think about problems all day long, and sometimes I have — and it has made me sick. Literally. My body is reflecting the years of stress I have been creating by focusing not on possibilities, but on problems.
Now, I am not proud of this. I am not pleased with myself. I am a person who prides herself on helping others with their problems. Helping others to see the meaning in their difficult situation, and helping them to work with it in positive, growthful ways. I'm a counselor, for Pete's sake! So while my physical issues tempt me to berate and blame myself (“You know better! Why don’t you practice what you preach?) I am instead reminding myself that you teach what you need to learn.
I am learning a lot.
The Messengers
The barrage of messages began with a book I’m reading which had this quote from Eckhart Tolle:
“Remember: The most important thing is not what’s happening out there. What is primary is your state of consciousness this moment. That determines the form the future will take. So the important thing to realize is that what happens to you is much less important than how you respond to what happens. That determines the way forward in your life.”
Another message came via the work I’m doing with a business coach. The process is forcing me out of my emotional crock pot, where I simmer endlessly, and directing my focus again and again to what I can create, rather than what isn’t working.
A third message came through a talk that reminded me that my thoughts and feelings are composed of vibrational energy and that like energies attract. We quite literally create our future today with our emotions, our vibration. If I’m worrying, I’ll get more worry. If I’m peaceful, I’ll get more peace.
(Easier said than done.)
And then, to cap off the week, a client shared with me her sadness and regrets as she traverses middle age. In the course of our conversation, I pointed out that if she continued to focus on vanishing youth and lost opportunities, she would miss the potential awaiting her now. If the focus is on what has been lost, it’s hard to see what is available and beckoning right now.
(And in case you’re wondering, yes, I can hear myself.)
The Lesson
Every single message I got this week is about shifting the focus from problem to possibility. It’s about redefining what appears to be a “problem” and seeing it as an opportunity to become who I am meant to be. It is my soul inviting me to expand, rather than contract. It is an invitation to be more.
Fundamentally, I believe what the poet David Whyte says:
...anything real that presents itself to you is not an obstacle, but a necessary next step."
I forget this, regularly, but then the benevolent Powers-That-Be send messages to remind me and set me straight. So I pick myself up, dust myself off, and start back on the path.
Which is all we’re here to do. Follow the path at our feet. Learn. Get back up when you stumble and fall. Be kind to ourselves and those we meet on the way. Offer what we have to share.
That’s it. That’s the way forward. And when a rock plops in the path, or you're inundated with a barrage of messages, pay attention. They are there for a reason: not to hurt you, but to propel you into your destiny.
Excelsior! Onward and upward.
Kate
