The Gift: Are you evolving or revolving?
You’re gonna be 40, 50, 60 anyway. Might as well take a risk. Do something you’ve never done before. Change is synonymous with growth. To grow you have to evolve instead of revolve. Times are changing and we are changing with the times.
We have a choice how much of our lives we give over to fear. Fear uses the most relentless, provocative words, ‘What if.’ When fear comes like a panic storm and your body shakes and your heart races, say ‘Thank you fear for wanting to protect me, that was then, this is now.’ over and over again.
Fear does not have to rule your life. Releasing the fear starts with you.
What if’s don’t empower us, they deplete us.
When we say ‘I can't mean I’m helpless and unless you’re an infant that simply isn’t true. When we say ‘I can’t what we are really saying is ‘I won't - I won’t accept it, I won’t believe it. The language of fear is the language of resistance, and if we’re resisting we are working very hard to ensure that we go nowhere. We deny growth and curiosity. We are revolving not evolving.
I need to versus I want to. Needs are things without which we can’t survive - breathing, sleeping and eating. You don’t need to trust your husband, you want to. And if you want to you can choose to.
Replace your I can’t, I'm trying, I need with I can, I want, I'm willing and I choose.
Be curious. Curiosity is vital. It’s what allows us to risk. When we are full of fear, we are living in past that already happened or in future that hasn’t arrived. When we are curious, we’re in the present eager to discover what’s going to happen next. It’s better to risk and grow and maybe fail than to remain imprisoned never knowing what could have been.
Identify your fears, and make a list of your fears. For each realistic fear, decide if it causes you distress or stress. Distress is chronic danger and uncertainty. If you are living in distress your formal responsibility is to tend to your safety and survival need. Do whatever is in your power to protect yourself. If the fear is causing you stress, acknowledge that stress can be healthy. Notice how stress can be giving you an opportunity to grow. Make a list of things that you could do on your behalf to strengthen yourself and build a life you want.
We never know what’s ahead. Hope is not the white paint we use to mask our suffering, it’s the investment in curiosity. A recognition that if we give up now, we never get to see what happens next.
Celebrate each precious moment without waiting for someone else’s permission or approval. To choose hope is to choose life. Hope does not guarantee what will happen in the future but choosing hope what’s gets your attention every day. You can choose what you do to fill your day with passion, to dance, to re-read books that are meaningful to you or go to movies, operas, and theatre. To savour good food, to spend time with people who are kind and have integrity. Remember that loss and trauma don’t mean you have to stop living fully.
People would say, how can you hold hope when there is still genocide in the world when there is so much evidence to the contrary. To ask how hope is possible in the face of dire realities is to confuse hope with idealism. Idealism is when you expect that everything in life is going to be fair or good or easy. It is a defence mechanism just like denial or delusion. Don’t cover garlic with chocolate, it doesn’t taste good. Likewise, there is no freedom in denying reality or trying to cloak it in something sweet. Hope isn’t a distraction from darkness, it's a confrontation with darkness.
Conversation between survivor to survivor. This experience is always going to be with you. The flashbacks and panics usually don’t go away, but what we call post-traumatic stress disorder is not a disorder, it’s a very normal reaction to loss, violence and tragedy. Though you’ll never overcome what you witness that day, you can come to terms with it, and even use it as you can use everything in life to fuel your growth and purpose. That's the hope I’d offer you. You could have died too somehow. Hope is the conviction that you survived all that you survived so that you can be a good role model and ambassador for freedom. A person who focused not on what you’ve lost but on what is still here for you, on the work you’re called to do.
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Credits to the owner of the image: independent.ie
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