Our thoughts create our perspective on the world and affect both our experiences and how much we enjoy or life. Excessive negative thoughts affect not only our bodies in a negative way, but also affect our mental health and our cognitive functions. And negative thinking can also shape the degree we’re able to enjoy—and ultimately be present in—our own life. We are unlikely to get a lot of satisfaction if we are constantly in a state of “this sucks” or “this would be better if . . .”, instead we end up always looking for something better, dooming ourselves to perpetually chase something our perspective has already ensured we can never achieve.

Controlling the meanings in our life gives us the ability to direct our experience, rather than living as though we are a victim to enduring our environment. Have you ever seen the pure unmuted joy a toddler gets from something as simple as a mud puddle? Compare that joy to the reaction his or her mother has when the splashing begins? Some parents will be able to see the puddle as a positive—an opportunity for a child to learn, experience the world, and to have fun. Other parents will see the puddle as an ocean of germs and illness or maybe a danger to pristine, controlled appearance in which there is no additional cleaning and no one’s friends see and judge you for raising the human equivalent of Charlie Brown’s Pig Pen.

Each person has decided to have a different experience and level of enjoyment in that moment is produced by the meaning they’ve given the puddle.

Though, many of our meanings don’t originate with us. They originate from our environment. What did our parents, other family, and friends tell us it means? What has society told us it means? Or what has past experience told you it will mean this time? While gratitude is a powerful way to shift your perspective to a positive space, we can up our gratitude game by learning a strategy for flipping the meanings in our lives.

I recently had the opportunity to choose my own adventure and experience life from a fully conscious space and pick how I was going to feel when I recently learned that my department was cutting its funding, and my position would be a casualty of those cuts. I work as a technical writer at the University of Alberta. When I started my job, I was ecstatic. I knew that it was a job made just for me. It was challenging and engaging, the pay was at a level three time higher than I was earning before; the comprehensive health and wellness plan had not only allowed my family a discounted trip to the mountains last New Year, but had also generously funded a significant portion of the orthodontics work that both of my daughters were currently enduring. There was a degree of flexibility in my office hours, and my co-workers we people I enjoyed both at and outside of work.

I was not programmed to see the world from an exclusively positive perspective. Few of us are, it seems. I was taught to be realistic. To see it for what it is. And I began to focus on what it was. And what I started to see was the most recurring parts. I was reliving that same day, repeatedly, and when that occurred, I began to live my work days from my unconscious mind, having learned the routine of it so completely that my body became the mind. The documents were becoming the same, the people were the same, the commute was the same—though the longer I worked there the longer my drive felt. I had settled into a habitual pattern, and it became harder to get up in the mornings. And then I stopped focusing on the things I enjoyed.

But learning the job I was now enduring had a finite number of days ahead of me, my perspective was forcibly shifted. What about the health plan, the regular decent pay cheque? What about the flexible hours and the ability to occasionally work from home? And I had forgotten that I really enjoyed those people I saw every day. Operating from my unconscious, habitual mind, I had stopped consciously appreciating parts of it. Gratitude is a tremendous tool for keeping us conscious by forcing us to look joyfully at the parts of life we may not be present for or appreciate routinely.

But gratitude isn’t the only way we can experience the positive aspect of something. Assigning positive meaning takes us one step further from gratitude, by pushing us to be grateful for something we might unconsciously determine to be negative.

When I learned my contract was ending, I had to decide how I was going to feel about it. Was I going to a knot in the pit of my stomach, was I going to feel as though I had failed? Did I fear for my financial future? Everything I had learned a job meant told me that’s how I should feel. Society told me that having a job was a good. So, if having a job was good not having a job had to be bad. Cue the fear and worry.

But there is a universal truth in Alexander Graham Bell’s words, “When one door closes another one opens . . .” and rather than focusing on the loss of all the parts of my job that equal security—something society and biology have conditioned me to pursue, I decided to see that seed of opportunity. Using a simple formula, good meanings can be found hidden within any experience:

1. Decide what the worst possible meaning.

Often, this big—often unrealistic—fear is behind the decision that something is or will be negative. Losing a job could mean missing payments and going into bankruptcy. But that is an extreme outcome and often the result of more than losing a job. Shedding light on these unrealistic fears takes away their power.

2. Next, find the realistic negative meaning.

Losing a job may mean having to cut back on spending for a period of time. But, there are more jobs—especially if we are motivated and creative. But coming at anything from a negative place ensures the result reflects that.

3. Once you know the negative meaning, decide what the best possible situation to come out of all this could be. Losing a job could mean that right now, I have nothing to lose (no income or security to lose—its already gone) if I chase the dream I’ve been putting off. I have been given the opportunity to start pursuing what I actually want to do with my career. I have been given the chance to break the earning and time barriers that are inherent to almost any job.

Of these meanings, which one not only feels the best, but, is also the most likely to push me to a place I’ve been afraid to go until now? Which meaning is going to generate passion and excitement? That’s the meaning I have decided to choose going into my future. Which meaning will you choose for your life?

At the solid advice of Napoleon Hill, I recommend you look for the seed of equal or greater benefit, hidden within every adversity, every failure, and every heartache.

Originally published as a guest post on Soaring Free blog on October 25, 2019.

https://nijahope.wordpress.com/2019/10/25/hack-your-life-flipping-meanings-from-bad-to-good/

#selfacceptance #lifestyle #positivemeanings #shiftperspectives