Contributed by Donna Marie
This is the tune on my mobile. It’s a John Mayer song, one of my favorites. I think John’s an incredible musician. A friend noticed the irony of having this as my ring tone–but I digress. This week I had some other thoughts about this sentiment. I’ve been working with a couple of people I admire and enjoy working with. They are pretty cool people and the projects are inspiring, exciting and fulfilling. Sometimes things go exactly as expected and sometimes not. It’s how we adjust to the “sometimes not” experiences that I’ve been thinking about today. When things don’t go according to plan as they did today, I used to try and ignore, avoid or even pretend them away. The only thing was this–the energy I spent avoiding, ignoring, pretending was pretty exhausting. Not to mention, these strategies don’t do much good anyway since the situation is a fact. Ignoring it doesn’t change that. But, in recent years, I’ve found that facing these experiences is the only way to take charge of things and, as a close friend reminds me often, it’s a way to take responsibility for how things are going in my life. Let me be clear, this does not affect what is happening (which often is out of our control) … life happens. But, I am in charge of how I respond to the events of life. That means stepping up to the plate, accepting where I might have mis-stepped or how I might not have asked for/acknowledged what I needed in the moment.
When I found myself in these situations in the past, I would close myself off and not deal with what I was feeling. I just used to shut down and feel badly about it.
Nowadays, I recognize I cannot change what happened and at the same time, I can step up, make amends through acknowledging and recommiting to doing whatever it takes to make a positive shift. This is true whether we are talking about an exercise regimen, what we eat, starting a new venture, cleaning up our homes, paying bills, or any unfinished task that’s hanging precipitously over our heads. The list of things we say we want or need to do is endless. Spending time worrying about something that has passed does little to change the facts. A little acknowledgement goes a long way to turning the page on the less than desirable events in our lives–be it 10, 20 or 30 years ago or as recent as this morning!
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