Life is 50/50
One of the first things I ask new clients is “How often do you think we are supposed to be happy?” The answer is usually upward of 80% of the time. When working with parents I ask, “What do you want for your children?” The answer is usually “For them to be happy.”
The reality of life is that it’s 50/50. Half of the time we are in positive emotion and the other half we are in negative emotion. Do you really want to be happy if you break a bone? Lose a job? Lose a loved one? Have a conflict with your partner?
What happens in our brains when we believe we are supposed to be happy 80% of the time, is that when we are not happy, it signals to our brain that something has gone wrong. When our brains believe this, they go into fight or flight, we try to fix whatever is happening, or deny it, resist it, control it. This only makes the negative emotion persist.
In reality, nothing has gone wrong. This is the balance of life. All emotions are transient. Nothing is permanent. When we are happy, we fool ourselves into believing it will last and last. When we are unhappy we fool ourselves into thinking this will last forever as well. The good news is that nothing lasts, everything is always changing.
When we live mindfully, with moment-to-moment awareness of our thoughts, feelings, actions and reactions, we accept that everything is impermanent, we are able to allow our feelings, and accept reality for what it is, a temporary situation.
There is no need to fix or fight or flight.
Be thankful for every heartbreak, for they were planned.
They come into your life just to reveal another layer
of yourself to you, and then leave. Their purpose is to shake
you up, tear apart your ego a little bit, show you your obstacles
and addictions, break your heart open so new light can get in,
make you so desperate and out of control that you have to
transform your life. And you do.
My wish for you is that you experience all of life and that you live fully in the knowing that every single experience, positive and negative, is part of the threads that hold your story together. A life well lived is an interesting and beautiful story which can only be told with all the parts; the good, the bad and the ugly.
Embrace it all. Next time your brain says “Danger Danger, we need to fix this!” Tell it to go take a rest, you’ve got this!
With Love and Joy,
Sheila
PS: If you are ready to take a deeper dive into living mindfully, join my 1:1 Coaching Program where I teach my 3 step process, Presence-Power-Belief, to help you live the life you desire with calm confidence.