Do you ever find yourself thinking, "Life has taught me some
tough lessons, and the scars do not heal easily."? This
article can help you learn valuable lessons from the past,
instead of allowing the past to determine your future.
The quality of the life we live, is based upon the learning we derive
from our experiences. I know that for myself, it is sometimes easy
to feel that "Life has taught me some tough lessons, and the
scars do not heal easily." When I find myself thinking like this
it means that I have fallen into the trap of believing that "It
is ‘only natural’ that an ‘X’ type event or relationship,
will lead to a ‘Y’ type response." At other times it
becomes apparent that if I had somehow learned something different
from a particular challenging situation, the quality of my life would
be much more rewarding.
In working with a client struggling with alcoholism, we spent our
first session with the client telling me in detail how he had come
to live such an unhealthy debilitating life. In short he said: "Both
my parents were alcoholics, and both of them were physically abusive
to me. I grew up never knowing what bad thing would happen next. I
learned from my parents that the best way to not have to feel the
pain and uncertainty of life was to escape into an altered state of
alcohol induced euphoria." When listening to a client tell such
a sad story, it is easy to believe that their situation was all but
preordained.
As fate would have it, a week after beginning to work with this client,
I went to a business luncheon to hear an inspirational speaker discuss
how we can live our life fully, and succeed in times of hardship.
Indeed, the speaker was truly inspirational. When the talk was over
I waited around to thank him.
After introducing myself and thanking him, I asked him how he had
come to lead such an exemplary life. He looked around to make sure
no one else was listening and in a low voice he said the following:
"Both my parents were alcoholics, and both of them were physically
abusive to me.I grew up never knowing what bad thing would happen
next. I learned from my parents that the worst possible way to deal
with the pain and uncertainty of life was to escape into an altered
state of alcohol induced euphoria. My parents taught me a difficult
but very important lesson. I learned from them that staying present
in the moment is the only real chance we have for living a fulfilling
life."
What a truly great example of embodied spirit the motivational speaker
offers us. The quality of our life is not dependent on the circumstances
we encounter. The quality of our life is dependent on what we learn
from the circumstances we encounter. Perhaps the greatest example
of this wisdom is present in the life of Nelson Mandela. He is a man
that suffered great pain and hardship, and somehow his suffering seasoned
his soul in a way that has led him to be compassionate and caring.
In the course of exploring how to live our life more fully we can
consider pondering one question over and over again, "What can
I learn from the difficulties I am experiencing, that will actually
ADD to the quality of my life?" At the very least we can begin
to entertain the fact that: We can derive a wide range of learning
from any single circumstance, event, or relationship. When we get
the most stuck in life is when we believe that the one thing we did
learn is the only thing that can be learned.
About the author: Charlie Badenhop is the originator of Seishindo, an Aikido instructor, NLP trainer, and Ericksonian Hypnotherapist. Benefit from a new self-help practice every two weeks, by subscribing to his newsletter "Pure heart, simple mind".
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