Adopting the perspective that all circumstances in my life are lessons rather than obstacles, happenings or mere coincidence was perhaps the most powerful shift I’ve experienced. Before I learned this lesson, each difficult encounter or inconvenience was met by my small self with, at best, annoyance, and at worst frustration bordering on rage. The result was a baseline experience of consistent agitation, usually resulting in anxiety due to the fear of what was to come.
Moving beyond that, and understanding that not only am I attracting my circumstances so that I may learn from them, but that each lesson is an epiphany when I allow it, has lowered that baseline to one of calm curiosity and acceptance of what is right now. My baseline is considerably more level as a result. Just ask my daughter.
Meeting each learning opportunity as it occurs with the gratitude and serenity of knowing that this is why I am here (to learn, duh) diffuses all manner of what would have, in the past, been volatile or disturbing reactions. Remembering for a moment that emotional responses are energetic charges I’ve myself placed around the beliefs I use to navigate this world, you can begin to see how many negatively charged encounters are automatically stripped of their unpleasant prescription.
Staying present and teachable in each and every moment gives a greater awareness — a higher consciousness — of what is happening around me and what other new lessons are available to learn. In being aware of the myriad classrooms open to me in each and every moment has made the world and my life a much bigger, more wondrous place. You truly can pick most of your lessons and have fun with each and every one of them… when you allow yourself to. All you have to do is stay teachable.
“Life is ten percent what happens to you and ninety percent how you respond to it.” ~Lou Holtz“Once you stop learning, you start dying.” ~Albert Einstein