A SMOOTH SEA NEVER MADE A SKILLFUL SAILOR
I can handle anything.
In my life the seas have not often been calm and for that I have learned to be grateful. There is a lesson in everything - good and bad - and I look for the opportunity within the chaos to take whatever good is available in what can appear challenging.
The assignment: How do you deal with stormy seas?
In general I just bear down and deal with what is thrown at me the best way I can. I have been given plenty of opportunity to perfect this technique.
One thing I have learned is that many people react in a very negative way to the how I manage to handle challenges and stress, with seeming ease. They don't know that from birth to my mid-teens I was provided a ton of practice - my mother was not a nice woman. Years ago there was the mum at playgroup who felt compelled to insist that while my husband was out of town for business for weeks on end that he couldn't possibly be faithful and I should spend more time worrying about it. My biggest callenge to date was my youngest nearly drowning while I was away from home and the subsequent coma and rehabilitation for which I was fully present and accountable. There was the whack-job client who went out of her way to smear me to anyone who would listen, and became offended when I made a (futile) attempt to defend myself. Spending the last seven consecutive years in Middle School where I have experienced some of the most excruciatingly mean behaviour I've ever witnessed and it's affect on each of my four children. My recent divorce and being awarded sole custody has brought with it it's fair share of opinions - and advice.
I used to deal with it all very badly. Maybe not so everyone could see, but I felt like an old fashioned pin ball machine and I was the ball bouncing all over the place with no direction amidst bright lights and pounding noise. I simply reacted the best I could to all of the crazy around me.
Then I learned.
Though I often cannot recognize the lesson in the midst of the storm, I am able to immediately recognize what is going on and quickly let go of what I cannot control and I do my utmost to not make anything personal. I find myself repeating "this too shall change" and it brings me comfort to know that I've managed to live for years on end in a state of stress, but it did change. Everything changes.
People act badly based on their own experience. It has little, or more often nothing, to do with me. Some people behave the way they do out of habit or ignorance or both. People project their fears onto others. With some I've learned it is just better for me to armour-up but for most I just let them have their say and not engage in motivations that I don't understand. The only time I get truly fierce is when the behaviour of others directly impacts my kids.
With every big or small experience, once the skies have cleared, I sit down and evaluate what happened, what to take away, and what to throw away.
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Like Bree Hester, I believe you choose to be happy. Sure there are bad (out of your control) things that happen, but how you handle them is completely up to you. Your choices are your responsibility - there is no blame, no shame, no nothing but accountability. Your attitude is your decision. I choose to be happy. Happy within the context of not wearing the proverbial rose-coloured glasses or any expectation that those who populate my life have made the same choice :) Last October, Bree put together 31 DAYS TO A HAPPIER YOU and, armed with her PDF, I'm using March - that dreary time between winter and spring that seems to drag on forever - to make the conscious choice to be happy every day this month!
