Circumstances should never be at the driver’s seat of our lives but unfortunately, most people allow just that.
I wanted to give you a very special secret snippet from my coaching program so you can get a feel for just one kind of emotional work I help people hurdle in order to reach their financial potential and live a fulfilled life outside of their finances as well!
Everyone wants to enhance their quality of life. But nearly all of us get stuck at times due to our limiting beliefs and emotional patterns.
We surrender our habits to worry, doubt, frustration, overwhelm, or sadness. These emotions take our power and prevent us from doing and taking action on what we are truly capable of.
We Cannot Control Our Circumstances
We cannot control what happens in our lives, and trying will drive you crazy. But you can master how you experience these events. Yes, you can program yourself to react differently to events that would normally push your emotional triggers.
People will get sick, get fired, get divorced, and even pass away. Unfortunate things happen to all people.
These sucky things are real and I don’t expect people to walk around in denial. But how you choose to let them shape your life is up to you. Will you let the circumstance tear you down and steal your joy indefinitely or will you use the experience to enlighten and empower you?
The meaning you give to any event will add to or subtract from the experience you call life.
….and I’m going to share with you a very personal example…
Negative Circumstances Nearly Ruined Her Life
In 2014 a friend of mine lost her mother to illness. The initial sobbing and grieving carried on for nearly two years. She stopped working out, spending quality time with her children, and nearly lost her marriage.
She was generously given six months’ time off from work because she couldn’t even function in her normal duties.
Her children described those next two years as a living nightmare. Her oldest begged to move in with a friend.
Holidays were joyless, as my friend was sobbing because nothing was the same as when her mother was still here. She slept half the days away doped up on anti-depressants.
Her children tried endlessly to cheer her up but nothing worked. Friends, including myself, attempted to reach out and help her through this, but she was determined to stay rooted in her misery.
It’s like she somehow felt if she stopped grieving, she was a bad daughter.
The single event of her mother dying was unraveling her entire life and suffocating her future.
The loss of her mother wasn’t just subtracting from her life, it was annihilating it.
So what snapped her out of this awful hamster wheel of emotional defeat?
How to Look at Negative Circumstances Differently
November 2nd, 2016, my mother died.
She lost a lengthy battle with ovarian cancer. She was only 56.
My friend stopped by a few days later. I was sitting at the kitchen table finishing my mother’s obituary.
She looked at me, stunned, and said: “How on earth are you keeping it together? You aren’t in tears or anything.”
What ensued between my friend and me was a very long conversation with some seriously tough love.
I found writing my mother’s obituary to be interesting. I had to call my aunt to learn more about my mom as a small girl. Who was she as a sister and a daughter, not just a mom or a grandma? I learned things about her that I never knew, and it was in those moments I found reasons to smile.
I knew my mother was going to pass away and made my peace with it. I could have wallowed over lost time, or not being as close as we should have been.
But I chose differently.
You Get to Choose How Circumstances Effect You
I knew she would want me to continue being the best mom to my children I could. She would want us to look at photos, remember and laugh, not cry and feel guilt or sorrow every time her name came up.
I CHOSE to use her passing to remind myself that time is limited and I should be embracing the little things and loving more, worrying less.
I completely understand that all people grieve differently. For some people, getting over a breakup, death, or loss can take a few short months. For others, it takes years.
No matter how long it takes, you can still be emotionally healthy throughout the process, if you want to be.
We both went through the same experience but assigned a different emotional meaning to the event.
My friend glorified loss and struggle making her and everyone around her absolutely miserable. She essentially forfeited two years of her life with her family.
And the story she chooses will impact her whole life-because the decisions that control us are the decisions about meaning…and meaning=emotion.
I chose to celebrate life and worth, honor memories with joy and gratitude.
Our Money and Our Circumstances
The choice is always yours.
What will you choose to focus on? What story will you let guide you in life? Can you release past hurts?
Will you?
You can choose to focus on the good in people you don’t even like. You can look for opportunity in change?
You can rewrite years of negative money stories, and let me tell you, it’s a whole lot easier with a coach or mentor in your corner. If this interests you, hop over to my work with me page to learn more.
You get to choose what meaning you assign. It is the one power you have right now and always that can completely change everything in your life.
xoxo-Deanna