Struggling through hard times is familiar to us all. We want to have the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, work at a job we like, have a loving family, enjoy travel to beautiful places, ensure our children are happy and successful and live in a home we have always wanted. We at least want our lives to outwardly appear this way because we fear being judged.
Well, this description is a fairy tale. Real life is a rollercoaster of hard and easy; fun and sad; right and wrong; love and hate; good and bad. It’s a balance for a reason.
Let me tell you a story…..
Once upon a time, in December of 1963, there lived a young woman who was returning home to her husband following a visit with her parents. It was an arduous, long journey by train through high mountains deeply shrouded in soft quilts of snow. To her, they were silent sentinels standing guard in the darkest of nights.
With her was a sweet two-year-old, red-headed little girl, her daughter, who spent most of her time gazing out the window or curled into sleep by the rhythmic sway of the train. Her mother also had another child, kept safe, warm, fed and comfortable, within her body. This mother was just beginning her third trimester of pregnancy.
During this woman’s visit to her childhood home, she received a rather cryptic letter from her husband. In it, he had written that she should extend her visit with her parents and that he would send her belongings. Rather than follow this directive, the woman plans to return home to question the meaning of the letter.
Upon arrival, late at night in an empty, cavernous train station, she found there was no one to greet her. Using a public pay phone, she called her husband who reluctantly and with thinly disguised anger came to claim his family. Once luggage and human cargo were settled, this husband didn’t start the car. Instead, he evoked a tirade of anger shouting, “I told you in my letter, not to come back!” When the woman proclaimed she did not understand why, he replied, “Can’t you read between the lines! I don’t want you, I have someone else and I plan to be with her.”
This pregnant woman entered a state of shock. Words ricocheted senselessly off the interior walls of her brain. Her heart plunged into her stomach, vibrating rather than beating. The effort of breathing was akin to shuddering and the unborn baby rolled and kicked inside her body. She was experiencing an Instant, Pivotal Crisis; a sudden, catastrophic change to a person’s life direction.
There is to be no ‘happily ever after’ for this mother. How do I know for sure? This woman and mother is me.
Why Me?
I’ve endured several incidents that match and even surpass this level of IPC (Instant, Pivotal Crisis) during my lengthy lifetime. Yes, I’ve railed my fists at the sky and cried out, “Why?” and “Why Me?” I’ve cried and begged that the most recent IPC be the last. There is little comfort in the fact that they happen to virtually everyone.
I like to spend time pondering about finding answers to puzzling occurrences. I found myself remembering my difficult times and wondering how I survived them, how I carried on and what the heck was their purpose. From being ‘thrown away’ by loved ones more than once to experiencing inconceivable losses…..why? Innumerable questions and not one answer.
Pondering answers questions
Eventually, during one ‘ponder’ session, it came to me in the voice of one of my early mentors. It was a book titled: “Working With the Law”, but in this case, the law refers to “Universal Laws”. I still have the book I received from him long ago. It is so old the highlighter was faded. But I found my answers within.
One answer is: (drumroll please). “The great, self-evident fact, which cannot be too often repeated, is that when we change our thinking for the better, we automatically change our lives for the better.” To me, this means we need to cease dwelling on all the pain, hardship and misery that makes us out to be victims.
Don’t change your mind
Fact: your brain thinks in pictures, not words. A ribbon of words is not trailing across the plane of your mind. So, here’s a thought: rather than change your mind, change the picture! See what you want to be, do, have. Hold that image long enough and your feelings will begin to change too. It is our emotions that motivate us. E=Energy in motion (Emotion)
Now, I was not aware of this at the time of my husband’s atrocious behaviour and it has been decades since the time of this story. It wasn’t until I began ‘pondering’, many years after the fact, that the woman I was at twenty-one years of age, unconsciously changed her picture by tapping into her ‘mother-strength’. She got busy extricating herself and her children from this man, whose values seemed to be all about himself.
It was worth it!
The meaning of this episode in my young life taught me:
** I can take ownership of my life. I learned that blaming, including blaming myself, would weaken me. That wallowing in feelings of powerlessness and hopelessness day after day accomplished nothing.
** I can take personal responsibility. We always have some personal responsibility for situations in which we find ourselves. Accept it, for with personal responsibility comes personal power.
These are two very important “Universal Laws” that many of us never consciously discover. Self-knowledge is a wonderful study and it is through our toughest experiences we do our greatest self-growth.
I recommend that the next time an IPC pivots your world and the picture in your mind is one of disaster, give yourself some time to get past the shock, then, change the picture.
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