What's the greatest lesson life has taught you?
(Kinda going through a hard time rn)
Oh wow š So many things come to mind, itās going to be hard to narrow it down. Iām sorry youāre going through a tough time. I donāt know how late I am in answering this but I hope you can benefit from my response.
I think the greatest lesson Iāve learned is that mindfulness is the key to solving almost every problem in existence, if not all of them.
Donāt fall into thinking traps ā be mindful of your thoughts and question them.
Someone says something that upsets you? Stop and assess. Is it about you or them? Hint: itās always about them. Are they having a bad day? Is there some truth to what theyāre saying? Is there a lesson I can learn from what they said, or the fact that they said it? Why am I upset? Am I upset because what they said is true and I donāt like it? Am I upset because what they said is mean and made me feel like they donāt care? Is this person important to me, someone I want to keep in my life? If so, I want to approach this in a healthy way. How am I feeling and what am I thinking, and what do I want to say to them? What request do I want to make? What boundary do I need to set? How can I soothe myself in this moment?
Get fired from a job or someone breaks up with you? Stop and assess. How do you feel? What exactly happened? What was your role and what was outside of your control? Reframe so that youāre not shouldering a disproportionate amount of the blame. What changes can you make to avoid making those mistakes again? Is this the end of the world? What core wounds are being triggered by this? And how much of your current response is actually derived from the current situation, and how much is from those wounds? Focus on what you can do in this moment only.
Tempted to eat junk food? Stop and assess. Are you just hungry, therefore your body is seeking the easiest, most calorie, carb and sugar dense option for the quickest jolt of energy? Are you emotional? Why? What can you do instead?
Tempted to buy something impulsively? Tune in. Whatās going on? What do you feel youāre lacking that would give you true sustenance, rather than the fleeting half-pleasure-half-anxiety youād get from giving in to your vices?
Feeling depressed or anxious? Slow down and get into your body. Slow your breathing so your parasympathetic nervous system can take over and help you calm down. Elongate your exhale. How are your thoughts manifesting in your body? Where do you feel the anxiety? What does the depression feel like? Loneliness, sadness, hopelessness, fatigue, numbness? What beliefs are contributing? Whatās making you feel ashamed instead of feeling compassion for yourself? Accept your current emotional, mental and physical state as the reality of this moment. Now that youāre not trying to fight it with shame and worrying and repression, you can figure out what you need to feel better (short-term and long-term). Your depression and anxiety might not go away, but with mindfulness, they cease to be a āproblem.ā Theyāre just a thing thatās happening, which wonāt last (although it will likely return), and which we know how to cope with ā so itās not a problem, because we already have the solutions.
When we slow down and pay attention, problems get smaller because we realize weāve blown them out of proportion. They become less overwhelming because we have more awareness, and in turn, we feel more competent and hopeful. We become less anxious because rather than repressing (which compounds the problem), we process what weāre feeling and thinking; we tune into our inner world and give our thoughts and emotions the attention they need.
We canāt cope with the past, and we canāt cope with the future. We can only cope in the present moment. When we think about the future, we do it now. When we think about the past, we do it now. Ruminating or worrying is a waste of time and itās illogical. Itās hallucinating. It clouds our vision of the present and fills up our head with unhelpful thoughts which hinder our ability to make good decisions. It makes everything seem way more complicated than it is. All there is is now. What can I learn now? What can I do now? What can I accept now?
In 2016, I read The Power Of Now by Eckhart Tolle, and it brought about one of the most pivotal shifts of my life. When someone asks me to recommend a book, this is the first one I mention. For years, I used to carry a physical copy everywhere I went. Nowadays I have the e-book and audiobook if ever I want to read it on the go. Iāve read it so many times I donāt even really need to read it again, because what I learned cracked me wide open and reframed my world-view so dramatically it could never return to the way it was. I read it again every now and then because other than practicing mindfulness and formally meditating, reading his words anchor me into the present moment more deeply than anything else. And when I start to get into autopilot (like during a depressive episode), reading his words reminds me to pay attention. I recommend reading The Power Of Now first but he has other great ones as well. He also has Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Spotify, and likely other socials. Iāll tag this #Eckhart Tolle and you can click that to see quotes of his Iāve shared. His work changed my life and I keep sharing it in hopes that othersā lives can be changed as well. There are countless other resources outside of Eckhart Tolle and I highly recommend those as well.
This is probably the greatest lesson I ever learned, and continue to learn more about every day. And mindfulness is something I try to practice as much as I can (which is as often as I can remember to remember āŗļø).
Mindfulness is so, so, so crucial for our wellbeing as individuals, for humanity, animals, nature ā for everything.
Thanks for the question! š Feel free to reach out any time, and keep seeking knowledge and personal growth as you are now.
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