Last week I had a bit of a crazy week. It started with an unexpected tooth removal, followed by infection of said tooth (tooth hole?), food poisoning and a flat tyre. It was a week where I had planned to attend 2 networking events and to make some serious progress on my current goals. By day 2 it was clear that not much of that was going to happen.
Have you had such a week? Are you in one now? (*hugs if you are).
At first, I was frustrated. I didn’t want to cancel my attendance to these great events. I didn’t want to take time out of my schedule again for the 4th dentist visit. I didn’t want to have to rest on the couch when I had work piling up everywhere…
I was resisting everything. It wasn’t going “according to plan” and now I have to “waste time” doing all these other things instead of what was on my schedule. (Yes, there was a bit of drama. But, I had tooth pain. That is a valid excuse:)). I felt annoyed, frustrated and then…anxious. My primitive survival brain kicked-in in full force: “I’m falling behind. I’m never going to get this course finished”, “I’m failing. I’m not making any progress” and my favourite “I’m not good enough”.
Wow. What just happened here?
I had a plan (expectations) and that didn’t happen. I expected one thing to happen, but something else did. These are the facts. This is what really happened. The rest is what we call drama. Making an event mean a certain thing. eg. “I’m a failure.” These stories we tell ourselves are just that- stories. You can make them mean something bad or something good.
Here’s the thing: life happens. You lose time or sleep, you miss a deadline, you get sick. Things happen. When things happen you can make it mean that something is wrong with your life, or, you can just take it as it is- a bump in the road, a tooth out, a flat tyre. It’s all part of life.
The moment I stopped resisting all the changes and just went with it, I felt calmer. Accepting things and not resisting creates a whole lot of space and peace of mind. And then what happened? I started thinking “maybe this an opportunity to slow down”, “maybe I just need to rest and go slower at the moment”. Acceptance opened up an opportunity to potentially learn something, allow for other possibilities or stories.
Next time life happens not the way you expected, try just going with it. See how much peace of mind that brings.