by Jeff Terrell
What determines if an experience is positive or negative? It’s our perspective of an event that determines our reality. Were you taught to look for a silver lining? Perhaps you can find the positive element in a negative event, but let's examine the possibility that we can take it a step further. Expand the "silver lining” concept for a moment and view the experiencein a truly wholistic context.
We are Soul, an eternal divine being inhabiting a human body at this particular time in order to maximize our experience. Life in this physical form is a precious gift because things happening here on Earth are rich and challenging. It’s these rich, difficult, and joyous events that push us to learn and grow if we simply adopt the right attitude, that it’s all for our benefit at the end of the day. With divine love behind every thing that happens in our lives, we come to the realization that life events happen FOR us, not TO us. With this outlook on life, we are armed with one of the most powerful tools imaginable for survival in this world.
If we take the opposite view and adopt the “victim” mentality—one in which we are beat up by life and events happen to us—we are defeated right out of the gate, and we can be tempted to just give up on life. After-all, if everything is simply fate, what are we even doing? We begin to blame others for our “misfortunes”. We blame our circumstances, we blame God. Self pity can be a death spiral. Death of the spirit of living, that is.
Many years ago, I struggled with self pity. It felt like a safe place to be. If I couldn’t find love, then at least I might find someone to feel sorry for me. It was a self-fulfilling downward-spiraling state of mind. The more I moped about, trying to garner pity, the less people wanted to do with me. After all, who wants to hang around with someone who’s always down in the dumps?
The same experience can be both negative andpositive. Remember the movie City Slickers? Phil, Mitch, and Ed were riding their horses along the cattle trail sharing their best days and worst days ever. Phil and Mitch told of their best and worst days illustrating the contrast between the two. It was then Ed’s turn. Ed told the story of the day he stood up to his cheating father telling him they didn’t need him around any more. He had stood up for his family. That was his best day. “What was your worst day?” Mitch and Phil asked. "Same Day”, was Ed’s reply.
If we adopt the attitude that things are happening for our spiritual benefit, then we are looking from that all-important spiritual viewpoint. We are a multi-dimensional, eternal, and energetic being absorbing the experiences we need in order to recognize our own divine nature. Soul doesn’t judge what’s happening as being bad or good, it’s just a step on the journey, and we are all on our own unique individual journey.
One might ask, what did that experience teach me? What can I learn that will allow me to grow? As Soul, we chose this life at this time in order for us to have the exact thing happen we need to maximize our spiritual unfoldment. We’re here for a purpose! Acceptance of this fact will bring us around to the realization that all is in divine order. We can relax and allow life to flow through us without judging whether it’s bad or good.
We are Soul, an eternal divine being inhabiting a human body at this particular time in order to maximize our experience. Life in this physical form is a precious gift because things happening here on Earth are rich and challenging. It’s these rich, difficult, and joyous events that push us to learn and grow if we simply adopt the right attitude, that it’s all for our benefit at the end of the day. With divine love behind every thing that happens in our lives, we come to the realization that life events happen FOR us, not TO us. With this outlook on life, we are armed with one of the most powerful tools imaginable for survival in this world.
If we take the opposite view and adopt the “victim” mentality—one in which we are beat up by life and events happen to us—we are defeated right out of the gate, and we can be tempted to just give up on life. After-all, if everything is simply fate, what are we even doing? We begin to blame others for our “misfortunes”. We blame our circumstances, we blame God. Self pity can be a death spiral. Death of the spirit of living, that is.
Many years ago, I struggled with self pity. It felt like a safe place to be. If I couldn’t find love, then at least I might find someone to feel sorry for me. It was a self-fulfilling downward-spiraling state of mind. The more I moped about, trying to garner pity, the less people wanted to do with me. After all, who wants to hang around with someone who’s always down in the dumps?
The same experience can be both negative andpositive. Remember the movie City Slickers? Phil, Mitch, and Ed were riding their horses along the cattle trail sharing their best days and worst days ever. Phil and Mitch told of their best and worst days illustrating the contrast between the two. It was then Ed’s turn. Ed told the story of the day he stood up to his cheating father telling him they didn’t need him around any more. He had stood up for his family. That was his best day. “What was your worst day?” Mitch and Phil asked. "Same Day”, was Ed’s reply.
If we adopt the attitude that things are happening for our spiritual benefit, then we are looking from that all-important spiritual viewpoint. We are a multi-dimensional, eternal, and energetic being absorbing the experiences we need in order to recognize our own divine nature. Soul doesn’t judge what’s happening as being bad or good, it’s just a step on the journey, and we are all on our own unique individual journey.
One might ask, what did that experience teach me? What can I learn that will allow me to grow? As Soul, we chose this life at this time in order for us to have the exact thing happen we need to maximize our spiritual unfoldment. We’re here for a purpose! Acceptance of this fact will bring us around to the realization that all is in divine order. We can relax and allow life to flow through us without judging whether it’s bad or good.
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