How often have you heard: Bad things happen for a reason…

 or

Bad things happen to good people….

You must have scoffed and said then… “Nobody wants bad things happening to them!”

Often enough, we find ourselves in difficult circumstances, situations, living conditions. We find ourselves encountering events and experiences, facing challenges that happen to be really testing and tiring. As a consequence, all these negativities create discomfort, cause us pain, make us suffer immensely.

So how do we respond to these bad, negative things?

Do we feel happy about them? No

Do they make sense to us? No

Do we look forward to them? Certainly No!

Our negative experiences go beyond causing us mere pain, they create a whole cycle of misery:

They create bitterness and anger (because we think that we didn’t deserve what happened to us and we keep asking ourselves ‘Why me?’ ‘Why did I encounter this misfortune?’ ).

They create trauma for us (because we start living in fear of the ‘what’s next’, ‘what if’).

Ultimately, these negative experiences create our mindset….the negative mindset (because we expect the worst from everything and everyone, even from the Universe!)

Therefore, when we see negative, damaged people, those hurting from inside, and when we see ourselves in the mirror and see the image of someone negative, hurt and damaged staring back at ourselves, we end up asking:

What the heck happened to me?

How did I end up becoming like that!

Sometimes, there is a desire in us to get back to our old pure, pristine, untainted, even naive selves.

We want to heal! We want to be happy again. But it doesn’t happen!

As a result, we continue feeling miserable, sad, bitter and unhappy!

We don’t heal because we don’t realize that in order to heal fully from our negative experiences, our body needs therapy, our mind needs therapy, and more importantly, our suffering soul needs therapy!

The Loop of Denial

This happens when we don’t accept ‘pain’ as part of living. We don’t accept that whatever has happened to us, has happened for a reason. We think that anything ‘bad’ in life is not needed, at all, EVER! If it happened then it was ‘unwanted’, ‘unnecessary’! We were unlucky, cursed to encounter them.

This perception thus makes our mind keep fighting the bad experience, keep rejecting the lesson it has for us. As a result, we suffer, and continue suffering and feeling sad!

The Power of True Acceptance

The quintessential truth is that whatever happens to us is part of the Divine plan for us. It is not ‘bad’ for you, as it is part of the challenge, an essential chapter in the book of your life, an important step in the blueprint laid out for you by the Universe.

Hence, this seemingly ‘bad’ and ‘negative’ thing is the next step in your growth and evolution. And without suffering, there is no growth.

When you don’t accept this negative experience as something ‘meant’ to happen, something as part of the Divine scheme, you end up staying stuck at the lower rung and tier of the ladder. You don’t grow, you don’t evolve.

But the thing is that when you see your life as part of the Divine Plan and everything happening to yourself as concording to that plan, then there is no ‘why’ and ‘why me’. Instead, you start saying ‘YES’ to everything, every experience happening to you! Consequently, your anger, your frustration start transforming into acceptance, a pro-activeness towards and ownership of your own soul’s transformation!

Letting Go of Your Sense of Entitlement

We feel entitled to have everything good in this world. We want everything happening our way, according to our timeline.

We want…the perfect looks, health, family, grades, career, relationships. We want EVERYTHING! We want them NOW!

Of course, we CAN want things, we CAN strive for them. But the truth is that we don’t DESERVE anything.

The Universe owes us nothing!

Look around, there are people living in conditions far worst than us! So, what we have are, in fact, privileges! This awareness of us is what carries us to the next step: Gratitude!

Learning to Live Life with Gratitude

I have written at length about gratitude earlier too! Gratitude is what keeps us humble! It keeps us our egos in check! It’s an attitude, a shift in perspective, a lens that allows us to see the tiniest of good, the beauty, the perfection, the possibilities in people and in day to day situations.

So, we can CHOOSE how we see our lives, how to we respond to what the Universe is offering to us: We can either choose to respond to its offerings with gratitude, or we can choose to continue living in discontent and frustration. The choice is ours.

So how do we find the strength to respond to the bad things, their consequences happening to us with gratitude, and not resentment?

It’s not easy…AT ALL! But gratitude is a choice, a conscious habit that eventually becomes something permanent, an attitude transforming into a positive mindset.

The Ability to Respond to Life’s Callings

How often have you responded to something bad happening to you with these kind of reactions:

‘Oh no…’

Why does this happen to me always’

‘I can’t believe it is happening to me…!’