Actually, it was! Let’s be realistic, sometimes life is difficult and we really feel beaten down, or we have people in our life who are going through a bad time and find it hard to believe in positive thinking, law of attraction, create your own reality, or everything-happens-just-as-it-should philosophies.

So we talked about what we can do when that happens. What works, what doesn’t.

Paula’s first suggestion was to start by noticing how you feel and what you are thinking. This is the starting point for a couple of reasons:

• When you feel down and out, it’s often too much of a leap to try to change how you think, but most of us are able to at least observe.
• Besides, when you want to change anything, the first step is always to establish your starting point. This is the big red X that says; “You are here” on the map.

The next step is to deepen your observation, to make it more specific. For example, you could ask yourself:

• What have I tried, exactly?
• What has been the connection between my circumstances and my thoughts?

I’ll give you an example to illustrate this last point. It’s rather trivial, but that keeps it simple. I was trying to open this supplement bottle, and it had a child-proof cap.

The first time I tried to open it, I persisted for less than a minute and then left it for later. When I came back to it, I was frustrated in advance, wondering why they make it so hard, thinking the cap was probably defective.  Actually, it seemed like it had this everyone-except-for-mechanics-or-engineers-proof cap! It would not budge despite me trying the usual moves.

Then I took a breath, told myself it didn’t make sense for them to make it this hard and that it had to be easy. I tried again, and it opened in one smooth move!

I expected it to be hard and it was. I expected it to be easy and it was. It reminded me that life often lives up to my expectations.

So when life is quite difficult, it might serve us well to observe whether we are bracing ourselves in advance for trouble…and get it on cue.

Paula went on to talk about the tool she uses when she, or one of her clients, temporarily lost hope: Byron Katie’s “The Work”.

And she suggested we do 4 things when we are faced with lost hope:

• Be compassionate
• Listen (or observe, if it’s about yourself)
• Don’t deny or lecture
• Love yourself even when you’re down

You might enjoy listening to the interview; you can find it here.

“I just came back from a family reunion in Hodgeville Saskatchewan – population 150ish. One day my Uncle Felix and Aunt Hilda began telling stories about grandma and grandpa (that’s my great grandparents) who homesteaded there in the 1920s.

If you’re never been to southern Saskatchewan then picture bald prairie. The only trees were planted by hand and carefully watered with buckets carried from the wells. And the trees were needed to protect the houses (no R2000) from the winter winds.

It was the Depression and they were poor. Aunt Hilda spoke about grandma holding blankets over the windows during hail storms to protect them from the hail. She remembers the kids all crying because they knew what hail meant – no food. As a mother, my heart clenched at the thought of listening to the hail and knowing it meant not enough food for my kids.

And having no backup. No social services. No food banks. No credit cards. Just hungry kids.

Then Uncle Felix started telling a story about one Christmas when there was no money. So little money that they thought they might lose the farm. And would have if grandma’s parents hadn’t loaned them the money to keep going.

In the weeks leading up to Christmas, grandpa wanted to make sure the kids (about seven at this point) all had gifts under the tree. With no money, he scrounged around town for scrap wood. He then stayed up late each night carving and building. The older girls got hope chests, the younger ones got toy kitchens (I still have my grandmother’s) and the boys got horse and wagons (Uncle Felix still has his).

The determination and love grandpa showed: not knowing if they were going to have a home and yet giving up sleep to give the children a good Christmas seems quietly heroic to me. No one is going to make a movie or write a book about grandpa. And I’m sure most prairie families have similar stories in their family history.

But it got me thinking about my life and my business. It’s easy to get scared about taking risks and trying new things. It’s easy to feel a sense of foreboding when I look at what’s happening with the economy.

And then I think about Aunt Hilda crying as grandma holds up a blanket to keep the hail out. I think of grandpa working late into the night with scrounged wood even as he wondered where they’d be living next summer.

Suddenly the things that seemed scary and overwhelming don’t look so bad. Suddenly I’m thinking if my family can go from wondering if they’ll have a home and food to hosting a family reunion with over 75 in attendance in less than a century, what can I do?

The next time I worry about taking a risk or wondering if I can succeed at something new, I’m going to think of grandma and grandpa out on the bald prairie. I come from hardy stock. I can succeed too.”

Andrea J. Stenberg
TheBabyBoomerEntrepreneur.com

Now, doesn’t that put things in perspective?

That is a quote from an article on cancer survivors in April 2009’s Alive Magazine (Canada’s Natural Health and Wellness Magazine, www.alive.com).

I find this an inspiring statement about how to get through any difficulty, health and otherwise.

Those of us who embrace life will ride through financial or business setbacks more quickly and with less damage. We will see the lessons to be learned and appreciate what we have rather than be entirely focused on what we lost.

It isn’t always easy to appreciate “all that life gives us” when we feel all we seem to be given are lessons of hardship.

May I suggest two ways to get you there?

• Put yourself in the mindset of an observer, looking with curiosity at the events of your life. Curiosity takes you out of victim mode. It also removes the pressure to find immediate solutions to your problems, since you are not making decisions but are just watching.
• Look deeper in the present moment for life’s enjoyable gifts. Even if things are really tough, you can still find some. Have you ever had a bad chest cold; didn’t you really appreciate the pleasure of a deep breath afterwards? Or how about the gratefulness you feel when your headache finally goes away?

When you start enjoying life’s moments more, you are more present and when you are more present, you start enjoying life more.

Your body, mind and spirit respond to joy by working to their highest potential which brings not only improved health but also more success.

I was at the gym and a few of us were in the locker room getting ready to leave after our aerobics class. One woman was saying how they normally travel to Europe every year but won’t go this year because she didn’t think it was safe. “People are really scared and close to panicking, and there’s too much danger of riot or of being robbed”, she said.

Now I didn’t engage in a discussion about whether her perception was accurate, being quite happy to step away from the energy of that topic.

Yet as I was driving home, I noticed I was experiencing fear; the gut wrenching, I’m afraid for my survival kind.

It didn’t take long did it? I had no logical reason to fear, no thought of it before chatting with her, and here I was, barely able to breathe.

What it taught me is that I must be more aware than ever of my thought and energy management. I know what to do to help prevent me from being “infected” by other people’s fear, yet I DIDN’T DO IT!!

Not really. Sure I avoided engaging in the discussion but didn’t use any of the other tools I know to keep my energy clean, even though I know fear is the most charged of all emotions.

One thing these uncertain times are teaching us, is the need to go through our day with more awareness than ever before. Lesson learned! (I hope )