I blame my mother for my positive attitude to life. Growing up, one of her favourite sayings to my siblings and myself was “Don’t fix the blame, fix the problem.” The older I get, (or perhaps more accurately, the more teenager-y my children get) the more I can appreciate that there is a fair bit of wisdom in this approach.
I find myself echoing my mother’s wisdom at home when the kids fall into that terrible trap of “victim mode.” You know that state of mind where you convince yourself that fighting for the poor crown is a really good idea. That horrible attitude where you get to claim the apparent crown of being the worst/ having the worst/ experiencing the worst. Sometimes we can get so caught up in the details of how we got into a certain situation and just how terrible that situation is that we forget to look for a way through it.
All too often those situations that appear to be obstacles are actually opportunities in disguise. It’s a popular opinion that 2020 has so far been one great obstacle. We’ve had record setting devastating fires in Australia and California, an intense Atlantic hurricane season, a chemical explosion in Beirut, oh and a pandemic with its accompanying deaths, lockdowns, protests and police brutality. News, radio, social media have all been alight with terrible news updates. It’s really easy to get sucked into the narrative of doom.
But what if 2020 has been as good as it has been bad? What if the challenges thrown our way this year are really opportunities in disguise?
One of my favourite cafes has been through a heap this year. We all know how tough Covid has been on the hospitality industry. This café though, has been a shining light on how to respond to life’s curve balls. When it was no longer feasible for them to open as a café during lockdown restrictions, they were among the first to start offering take-away food. Turning their menu into heat-at-home delicious treats, encouraging people to buy local and adapting their systems to accommodate the reawakening from restrictions.
They were so successful at pivoting to circumstances and learning new skills that they are now closed. You see they bought the shop next door (that business was unable to make it through the lockdown period) and are now expanding.
The truth is the times where we find ourselves vulnerable are our true moments of destiny.
They are the instances in our life where we get to cultivate our most fulfilling experiences. They’re the times when our courage is tested, our values are forged; times which mother the innovation of our greatest accomplishments.
There is a principle in Chiropractic Philosophy that talks about Universal Intelligence…
“A Universal Intelligence is in all matter and continually gives to all its properties and actions, thus maintaining it in existence”
I like to think of it as the universe constantly conspiring for our best life. If we take this point of view, then hardship can be reframed as something to mine the good from. I don’t know what gems have been hidden in 2020 for you, but I do know they are there. We only have a few months left of this brilliant year to ensure we have found the precious stones.
My mum would probably suggest you focus more on the sparkly stuff than the dirt in between.
– Jo
