Thriving

Tune in to this week’s topic to find out how to go from suffering to thriving by tuning into what we love to do the most.

Learning to thrive

Thriving is our essential nature – yet when we experience unwelcome change, distress, loss and/or memories of a traumatic childhood, relationship or betrayal of any kind – we have a hard time believing this truth.

Mainly because the suffering aspect of the experience is so very real and painful that we do not want to experience it anymore or re-live it. So we learn to protect ourselves from potential hurts in the future.

When I say “we” I mean our human/ego/personality aspect of ourselves.

If you read my blogs regularly you know I have a strong belief that we are all Souls having a human experience. Our Soul is the part of us that knows that thriving truly is our essential nature.

Our ego or the “human” aspect of ourselves gets really crafty in its ways and means of protection and will do whatever is needed to avoid, numb, deflect, forget and even for some – lock the experiences and the pain tightly up in a box and keep it securely tucked deep down into our psyche – hoping it will just stay hidden.

Enter in the sub-conscious mind and the numerous addictions our society has as a collective whole. By addictions – I am not just referring to the obvious addictions like drugs, alcohol, gambling, shopping etc. – I am referring to ALL addictions – like our addiction to worry, our addiction to blaming, and our addiction to shaming (yes these are addictions too)

All of the above, keeps us in a story we have created around “who we believe ourselves to be” or who we think we need to be. All of which keeps us in numerous stories of fear, righteousness, victimhood, survival, triumph, suffering and well…ultimately stress.

We can all relate because honestly who hasn’t experienced some sort of hurt, betrayal or trauma. Whether it is emotional or physical – we all have a story.

If you have experienced a life of trauma after trauma and the experiences and feelings are very intense, real and are ruling your life. Then, my heart deeply goes out to you and I would suggest finding yourself some support in the form of one-on-one therapy and counselling. You are worth it and you deserve to thrive in spite of all the trauma.

If you have done the counselling and you are ready to make some internal spiritual changes than let these words sink in…

You were not born to suffer – you were born to thrive

If you are ready to let go of the human/ego/victim story and experiences and make some serious yet subtle changes to ultimately shift your story to one of thriving (in any and all areas of your life – love, health, wealth) then stick with me!

What if letting go of your victim story is a pretty scary reality for you right now? Perhaps it feels like it is keeping you safe. Hear this – I completely understand and depending on where you are on that journey – you may not be able to hear this message no matter many times you read it or hear it. However, maybe your Soul has been nudging you with so manty signs and synchronicities that you are curiously open to anything. .

I had a very real “victim story” that kept me stuck and unable to make the changes I needed to make in my life. It kept me stuck because I was the victim and those around me I entrusted with my story – could see it, feel it and helped me fuel it. Of course I only trusted those who would support and feed my victim story with compassion and genuine love and concern for me. If anyone challenged me on my inability to make the much needed necessary changes – well they would no longer be a trusted confidant. (See how the ego works)

As long as I was the clear victim – I WASN’T the problem and therefore wasn’t the one who needed to change. Right??? WRONG. But telling this story about my situation meant I didn’t need to make the changes that scared the heck out of me to make. Suffering became my crutch – the unfortunate by-product of my decision to stay in a terrible situation – but it sure got me a lot of sympathy and support. And this victim mode worked for me – for a long time. I got very comfortable in my own dysfunction. I got really good at navigating the struggle – until I couldn’t anymore.

Blame is an addiction that keeps us stuck in our story of victimhood and it is a dangerous addiction because it keeps us believing we cannot change our story or that we are powerless over the real culprit.

This “culprit” we are blaming can be anything! Let me list a few…

• Any person or relationship – a partner, an ex, a parent, child, teacher, coach, boss, co-worker, stranger…
• An injury
• An illness.
• An accident.
• A loss.
• Our upbringing.
• Our religion.
• Our emotions.
• Our thoughts and beliefs.
• Bad luck

HOWEVER…

 “Change happens when the pain of holding on becomes greater than the fear of letting go” ~Spencer Johnson

Read that again.

This quote literally saved by life – but first it slapped me in the face and punched me in the gut and those who have held onto pain (physically or emotionally) because the fear of letting go was so scary – know exactly what I mean.

If I haven’t scared you away yet – then perhaps you are ready to tell a new story. Perhaps you are ready to allow those locked emotions to emerge, to be felt, healed and released. Is it time to reclaim your birth-right to THRIVE? In all areas of your life.

Pain is inevitable – suffering is optional

We cannot do much about the pain our past stories have caused us – however we can choose now to no longer suffer from them. We can end the story of suffering and begin a new chapter – one of thriving.

It is important to note that our ego has a tough time letting our suffering go. Through the eyes of our ego – suffering is NOT an option and it will take deep offense to even the suggestion of it. Our ego will get very loud and will use every word, thought and belief in its power to keep us believing that suffering isn’t a choice.

Listen to your mental chatter right now…any of these sound familiar?

• “Yeah right, a life without suffering? Impossible.”
• “You have no idea what I have been through”
• ‘Everyone suffers – it is a part of life”
• “I can’t just ignore the pain?”
• “This is real pain I’m experiencing!”
• “One can’t just heal themselves from an illness/injury – that’s just crazy talk”
• “If I believe that – I’m going to be seriously letdown”
• “Good things don’t happen to me”
• “Get your head out of the sand and look at the world all around you”
• “You don’t know what happened to me”
• “Just stop choosing to suffer? Sure…I’ll get right on that” imagine eyes rolling here

As valid as many of these comments may seem – they are simply our ego in its height of protection mode.

How do we get past the cynicism, these thoughts, beliefs, words and storylines?

First we need to be willing to;

1. Stop listening to them.
2. Stop believing them.
3. Stop arguing for our limitations.
4. Stop defending our stories.
5. CHANGE THESE THOUGHTS, BELIEFS AND WORDS – create a different story

Next we need to be willing to step out of our ego fears and addictions of judgement, worry, blame and stubbornness and step into a space of curiosity, love, responsibility, openness, wonder and be willing to align with an energy that is beyond our ego, beyond our personality and beyond our human experience – even and especially when our ego is kicking and screaming. This means we align with our Soul – the essence of who we are – who we truly are.

We come back home to ourselves

How do we do this?

Meditation is the single most powerful tool for reconnecting with our essential self and aligning our ego with our Soul.

Meditation helps us go from the over-active, cynical mind to a less active, less judgmental mind. Over time with a regular meditation practice we can shift from a suffering mind that spends most of its time in stress – to a creative mind. In a creative mind – we create a new story and we find our joy.

In every given moment we are either living in creative mode or survival mode

Creative mode vs survival mode.

Creative mode

We are all creative in some way. Do not let your ego tell you otherwise. Creativity shows up for each of us differently and when it does- we know it – we may not describe it as “creative” but we know the feeling – we lose all track of time, we are in our “zone”, we are doing something we love, we are inspired, we feel energized, we are feeling our best. We are flowing, we are thriving.

We all have unique gifts, abilities and talents and this goes beyond just something we are good at – this is something we thrive at. This is something we LOVE doing, that we lose all sense of time in when we are doing it. This is something that when we are doing it – we feel our absolute best – despite our aches, pains and perceived limitations.

This is something (it could be many things) that brings us joy and that we feel compelled to share or help and inspire others with.

We were not meant to suffer – we were meant to live the majority of our life in creative mode! Some people do and you see it because they are thriving! They are shining. They are flowing and loving their life in spite of obstacles, chaos and challenges around them.

We create in creative mode.

Ask any artist or poet what state they were in when they created that beautiful piece of art or famous poem – they were in their space of full potential of creativity. Einstein spoke of accessing this state often. In creative mode we get clarity. Solutions and ideas spontaneously arise.

In create mode we can create a whole new story for ourselves AND find the inspiration to follow through – which is why we want to consciously set the intention to do what we love! Consciously do things that put you into this creative mode, into a good mood, a state of joy, a state of peace. Once we access this creative mode on a regular basis a natural inspiration to share this love and passion with others follows.

Think of creative mode as experiencing the energetic alignment with your Soul.

It is a beautiful feeling. Creative mode feels like ease to the physical body. We could be lost in creativity for hours and not feel tired – in fact we would most likely experience an energy that makes us feel light, almost as though we are walking on air. We feel like we are in harmony with everything around us. We are flowing, thriving and loving every moment.

Survival mode

We have all experienced survival mode – it is our fight/flight and freeze internal reaction to a stressor happening in our life. As I describe previously when our ego is in full control of our storyline and we are living much of our life in blame, shame, judgement, victim mode, resentment, stubbornness, worry and stress, our survival mode mechanism is triggered. This is a beneficial system to have when we are in real danger but our ego in protection mode keeps our body feeling like danger is everywhere and the wear and tear on the body after a while is detrimental to our physical and mental health.

Think of survival mode as being fully in the worries, doubts and addictions of our ego personality. We cannot create anything in survival mode – we are too busy surviving!

Physically in the body, survival mode feels tense, even painful – we will experience shortness of breath, sweating, intense emotions and we often react quickly and irrationally to situations like traffic, time restraints or a simple tone voice of someone we are with – these experiences can become habitual stress and occurrences as well. We can feel the stress in many parts of our body (typically the jaw, chest, belly, shoulders, and neck) and we will experience exhaustion once the situation is over OR if we live in chronic stress – we will feel exhausted as a regular state of being and never quite feel rested.

This Week’s Intention

This week’s intention is to bring our awareness to when we are experiencing survival mode and when we are experiencing creative mode. Get observant. Get curious. Get neutral (no judging ourselves).

1. Notice what we are doing when we experience survival, stress mode. (Breath through this)
2. Notice what we are doing when we experience creative mode. (Do more of this!)
3. Notice what we are doing when we are feeling our best.
4. Notice what brings us joy.
5. Notice what inspires us.
6. Notice what we most want to share with others.
7. Get curious of our unique gifts, abilities and talents.

If this blog post “spoke to you” and you are ready for some deeper change. Look back on the previous blog posts and videos for some more inspiration. If you are wanting to go deeper with a group of like-minded Souls, every Tuesday from 11am-12:15pm is the live (on-line) class for the personal development and meditation members. If you would like to become a member of this group contact me at leslie@wellnessdefined.ca or 780 722-3442

ALSO on Tuesday July 4^th 2023 from 11am-12:15pm there will be a free personal development class for anyone who would like to join in – you can silently observe from your zoom box or participate in the discussion if you so choose. It will be the first class of my Wellness Wheel/Chakra series to bring awareness and balance to our overall health and wellness.

To find out what these personal development sessions are all about Click the link below to join on July 4^th

Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81389448901?pwd=cDZtOENleHVrbElnelBGLzlGbmxGdz09

Meeting ID: 813 8944 8901    Passcode: 822833

If you cannot attend the live class but would like to view the recording afterwards – please reach out to me with your contact information and I will arrange that for you.

Namaste;

Leslie