BY SIMONE SMITH
It is great to see that you are still here with me. I have been pushing readers to really examine themselves; take a look at their ugly and find ways to recreate who they are. This starts by first identifying you and realizing that you do hold a special place in this world. This week I want to focus on making that shift from broken to rebuilding. It is easy to say that you are trying to make changes to do better for yourself. It is much harder to actually do what you are saying. Let us take a look at how to transform negatives into positives.
The last few months I have been using excerpts from his Summer Institute, 2013 Lecture 5: The Double Vision Strategy for Becoming Unstuck. I am now shifting to Lecture 4: The ABCDE Strategy for transforming Negatives to Positives. This was a lecture conducted by Dr. Paul Wong, a meaning therapist located here in Toronto. For those who are interested, you can find more of Dr. Paul Wong’s ideas and philosophies at www.meaning.ca. The 9th Biennial International Meaning Conference will be featuring world renowned speakers discussing spirituality and meaning. For those who are interested in growing spiritually or learning how to live a meaningful life, visit the website to learn more details on registration and conference speakers. In the next few weeks, I will be writing briefly on some of the topics that will be addressed at the conference. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to me.
Okay, now that we have the appetizer out the way, let us start digging into the main course. How do we find blessings from brokenness? The first thing that must be done is to look at how we perceive our experiences. When you are feeling broken, it is hard to see anything outside that pain; it can bring you to your lowest lows. It is hard to see the bright side of things when you are in this state. The first step is becoming aware that we need to surrender to the reality of uncertainty and void. This world is an unpredictable place; our plans do not always play out as we would like. It is the reason why this feeling of brokenness can occur. We need to realize that we do carry our own illusions of how the world is and how things are supposed to work for us. When they do not work out, we feel fragmented; we almost lose grip of our reality. “It was not supposed to be like this,” is a common phrase. Of course it was not supposed to be like that. If it was, life would be predictable.
How do we deal with living in an unpredictable world? We have to realize the futility or uselessness of defensiveness and illusions. They have never worked in the past and there is no way that they are going to start working now. When you are feeling broken, there needs to be an understanding that we have an opportunity to rebuild. Rebuilding is difficult to start because you have to find all the necessary tools to start doing so. Think about it in a real world sense: imagine having to rebuild something. You chose; it could be an engine, a dress, a piece of writing; regardless, you have to start from scratch. You may not have the tools or materials needed to rebuild and getting them will be at an expense. Now what? Do you stay stuck at this point in the process? Of course not!
One has to consciously choose to do what they need to do in order to rebuild their life. It means that you have to be fully aware of the consequences of that change. One has to be awakened from their state of brokenness or everyday business; they have to move with intention on a quest to do more; to rebuild what has been broken.
The human spirit is a lot stronger then we know; it can almost be looked at as defiant. The human spirit has a tendency to soar when it encounters challenges and adversity. The more we access our defiant spirit, the more resilient we will become and the easier it will be to rebuild each time we are broken. The best built home can be destroyed; no one is immune from suffering and tragedy; bad things happen to good people and everyone has their breaking point. We can avoid these ideas as much as we want, but it does not mean that they are going to change. The challenge for all of us is to recover and become stronger. Let us start building Toronto. I will provide you with the tools, all you have to do is the work.
