It wouldn’t be life without the ups and downs, the light and the dark, the positive and the negative.  Though we yearn for what we imagine to be a better reality, a better outcome, what vision or truth or sense of reality will work to get through the time of difficulty into the time of realization of that better place? 
In other words, a “negative” experience has created in us an urge to change, to make things better.  What understanding or strength will carry us through in our efforts and time to the hoped for “better outcome?”
“Write what you know” is the advice writers give other writers.  So I will share what I’ve learned to be true for me.

1. Allow for a bigger perspective.  Just how important am I in the scale of everything?  Humility and acceptance are important attributes, especially when I observe me judging myself and others.  A steady stream of unchecked thoughts, judgments and non-forgiveness keeps me stuck in my cycle of dark thoughts and limitation.  Seeing all the players and people and things in my life as opportunities - maybe it’s only those “negative experiences” that I can really can learn from.

2. My physical body-life is finite and I understand this is a temporary gig.  This body is my vehicle for learning.  Life happens “for me” to learn, rather than “to me” to suffer.  We are meant to grow and be in tune and to “live love,” not just react and merely survive.  This means respecting all living things as being on their own journey too.

3. Without the need to be religious within some limited form and dogma, I accept that the “me” who has a body is a spiritual being imbued with consciousness and the ability to create whole new outcomes.  The “I” that owns a body doesn’t die.

4. The “white knight,” the person who can save me, is already here, in me. Ironically, this attracts any and all “outside of me” positive forces and circumstances that come, with me being the attractor.  After all, who or what in this Universe wants to align with a whining complainer who won’t help themselves and blames themself and others?   “Forgive myself and others before entering the temple.”

5. Meditate to quiet the pollution of my thinking ego, my thoughts. . . be still often enough to know the healing silence of no thinking. Mindfulness, being the “silent watcher” of the mind parade rather than always being a victim of my incessant chatter.  Be aware of how much I falsely identify with my thinking as being “me.”

6. Offer a prayer of thanks with gratitude to what is, in all its details.  I can’t argue with reality, for I can only move from where I’m at if I am honest and accepting about my thoughts and the circumstances I’ve created.  Becoming fully responsible and conscious, being fully responsible for creation.

7. And I need ritually constant reminders that I already “know” the answers, inside of me.  That’s why daily meditation and prayer works better for me: I am reminded daily and offer myself the eternal truths of what is really going on.  Self-awareness, humility, gratitude and knowing how things really work conflicts with my ego’s need to be right and always be in charge through thinking and memories.  All of which keeps me from being in the “now,” where the moment and all creation always are.

The Chinese character for “crisis” carries within it a coupled meaning, “opportunity for change.”  So evidently the deeper the crises, the bigger the opportunities for my change.  Here’s to all of our struggles and opportunities with our own reality we all have created.
Yours in Wow, Cheers, Terry