How To Deal With Life's Challenges

Often Life can be slightly challenging.

And when I say challenging, I try to sound very dignified and “all together”.

Truth is, we all feel sometime as if we were being pushed on our knees by a force way above ourselves.

A force of such power that no matter how hard we’d try and get up, we‘d find ourselves straight back down every single time.

Face first, flat on the pavement.

I should be able to recognize the amazing opportunity for growth held in hardship and chaos.

I should be able to tell you all how I managed to turn a sorry situation into yet another little step on my way to enlightenment.

I should be able to do this and much more, but somehow I’d be lying.

And I’d rather stay truthful to the most authentic part of myself than covering my butt with colorful petals.

Funnily enough a client tells me recently how tired she is of constantly making a “booboo” of herself. She carries on saying that surely someone like me, with my knowledge and in my position, never makes a "booboo "of herself!

If only she knew….

As I look at her, I wonder what’s with people’s obsession about being always on top of their game.

We live in a world where words like mistakes, embarrassment, and confusion sound hard to the ear.

Still, they exist for we are often making poor choices, going unconscious and blind in front of the world.

Do we need to make it better for ourselves every time?

Can we afford the luxury to lay down flat faced on the ground and stay there as long as we need to understand what has brought us there in the first place?

As we rush back up and dust ourselves off, we often miss out on the gift that tough moments will bring to us.

I ask my client if she could live with herself knowing that at times, no matter how hard she’ll try, lessons will have to be learned, mistakes will be made and “feeling sorry for herself” may be her only companion for a bit.

How bad would that be?

How bad would it be to know that no matter who you are on your path back to wholeness, there will be times when you will make a right fool of yourself.

End of.

I bet even the Dalai Lama still dreads this one in the depth of his heart.

As the session concludes, I realize that I have been pushing myself through life recently, and maybe this is what has kept me on my knees, unable to stand up straight for more than 5 minutes.

I have been pushing & pushing through layers of genuine terror for a future still very unknown and far, for a sense of confusion and loss I can’t seem to shake off.

The more I push, the more exhausted I feel, and the less compassion I hold for my soul and the rest of the world.

And as I try to figure out what the heck is happening right now not just with myself but also with family, friends and clients, I realize that maybe I am not to know.

I also realize that as I try to work it all out in my head, I fail to watch myself holding on to ‘the little things” in life which always fill my heart with a joy that is hard to put into words.

A joy that brings me back to myself, to my core, where I’m strong without the need to know, where I’m graceful even in the midst of sheer fear.

I have been so busy trying to hide the consequences of less than spiritual choices, that I forgot the bliss I find in drinking my first and only coffee in the morning outside on the balcony while I watch the world lazily opening its eyes and I let the crisp air wake me up before entering a new day.

I forgot how much I treasure cooking for my family because that’s how I share my love. Food is such a fundamental part of my life, always has been, that even the simple act of making breakfast on a Saturday morning allows me to express that gratitude I always feel in my heart.

I also forgot how I move past sadness by watching people.

It never fails to amaze me the kindness found on the tube, the smile of a stranger as I rush through the crowd trying not to knock anyone over, the laughter of kids on their way back from school, the gentle word of encouragement by a colleague you’ve never even spoken to before.

Little things.

Things which are so huge, really, because they keep us sane in a world that no longer makes sense.

Things, which allow us to be who we really are, with our baggage and silly mistakes. Which will always give us that warm buzz in our heart no matter how many times we stumble & fall.

So as I ease myself through a new day,my heart will never harden when I simply allow little things to put a smile back onto my wounded heart."

Antonia Lyons

Thank you for visiting Bliss in the City

If you like my work and want to know how I can help you find balance and ease in the midst of urban madness, click here & here!

Sign up to Evoking Grace and get instant access to my Free Video Series: Thoughts & Emotions Make Our World.

Follow my mumbling & musing on Facebook and be part of my “online tribe”.