Staying on Track during Turbulent Times
This past decade or so has seen an increase in awareness towards well-being. Over the years, we’ve become familiar with words like “self-care”, “positive self-talk”, “attracting abundance”, “willpower is like a muscle” and so on…
And now that there has been wave after shock wave with a deadly virus, endless lockdowns, loss of income for many, the tragedies in Afghanistan and, at the time of writing this, we had earthquakes in Australia - more than ever, we need to draw from our exposure to well-being tools or useful memes.
Instead of talking further about the tragedies (because we’re all feeling them), I felt to offer some hope-inspiring hints for navigating through this current chapter:
Life in cycles - we all learned her/history at school, right? The rise and fall of the Roman Empire, world economic recessions, boosts and so on. There were plagues of times past destroying whole communities, then we had a few centuries of health and wealth. Times when our souls are really struggling and other times when we are at our peak. We know that life happens in this way, that there will be times when resources are scare, or plenty-of-plenty swings our way (and there’s still time to choose to do our part to increase the health of our planet).
Please remember all this. This period of time (shall we call it The Great Rebirth?) cannot last and better days must lie ahead. If we align ourselves with nature’s rhythms, we then can really ease into the flow of abundance and growth cycles in our own lives.
Uncertainty as opportunity - with every setback, we learn much about ourselves, about those around us and we revisit what is most important to us, or re-frame our values for the better. Using quiet times, as in lockdown, we can really go within and examine what else we have to offer the world.
Once we identify our heart’s desires for the short-term and future, we may cultivate, study and then amplify more of the good stuff into our lives. Trust me, it’s very possible (check out my Journey Coaching and Pathfinder online workshop if you’re ready to explore this further).
No matter what - when it comes to inner dialogue, we can make popular catch-phrases work for us. Sometimes we need to be willing to “flip it” and perceive certain statements in more constructive ways. For example, the term, “What am I going to do?” can either be said with total despondency and hopelessness, as in, “Oh no…life’s hit the fan, what the heck am I gonna do?!”…or we can totally flip it and say, “Ok, there’s some major changes going on, any loss here leaves a bit of room in my life - what AM I going to do?!” (said with the glorious inklings of possibility). We’re still acknowledging the hardship, but making hardship work for us.
One of the really powerful expressions you can fine tune to your advantage is, “No matter what”. Yes, it can mean “the last resort”, or the worst thing than can happen, or that we’re on the brink, but perhaps instead, we can really inject this statement with a sense of determination, suggesting an endless inner resource of strength and total focus, eg: “No matter what, I’m going to achieve all I set out to”. Even if you don’t feel it at first, with enough faith (and a little evidence of things starting to go your way), you really start to believe this about yourself and all you can do.
So, when times seem desperate, it really rings true that we aren’t without power. There is nothing stopping us from taking up on what the old memes say about increasing “healthy self-talk” and building “self-care” practises as a resource, especially including treating yourself with a little more kindness and gifting yourself a daily practise that strengthens your confidence and fortifies your health and willpower.
Go for it, I say. Use this time to your advantage to build up all you can be. It needn’t be a sluggish effort, but a summoning of energy in a joyful and natural way that comes when you begin to exercise your right to enjoy a present and future full of blessings. Chances are, as nature would have it, it’s going to swing that way anyway.
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