In Its Own Time

“Remember everything I told you
Keep it in your heart like a stone
And when the winds have blown things round and back again
What was once your pain will be your home

Everything in its own time
Everything in its own time.”
—Indigo Girls

We get it when we get it and not any sooner. Whatever we are looking for, a spiritual connection, an answer for a question in our life about direction, an ending of pain or grief, whatever it is, the answer comes in its own time and its own way.

We can’t make it happen any faster than it does. Our Higher Power, the Universe, brings us what we need when we need it. As difficult as that is to comprehend, it’s the truth. And sometimes it just may be that the lesson in the wait was learning to wait. Patience, or trust or faith. Sometimes we just don’t know what the lesson is that we are being taught and we may miss the knowledge of having learned it, but we learn it nonetheless, or we will have to be re-taught at a later time.

It’s just how things work and it is totally beyond our control to change any part of that. We still continue to use our recovery tools during any process of life even when we feel as if we cannot go on even though they don’t hurry the process they help us cope while we wait.

I was experiencing a particularly difficult time where I couldn’t see the lesson or the end of the pain that was occurring. While discussing with someone she said, “When my children were small they would get irritable, even feverish before a tooth came in.” The analogy was that something was happening in my life, below the surface, and once “the tooth came in” everything would be better and the lesson learned. Eventually the answer does come, the change does occur.

The “tooth will come in” when it’s time.

Compassion is Available

“When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving much advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a gentle and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.”
—Henri Nouwen

When we are in the midst of something difficult in our lives oftentimes the last thing we want is for someone to come in and tell us what to do. Or for someone who barely knows us to tell us that we have a particular issue as if they are our therapist. What we want is for someone to just be in our presence or even with us in spirit if physical presence is not possible.

We want to feel like they understand, even if they don’t really because they have not experienced what we are going through. Or we want to know that they feel our pain if we are suffering loss and grief. We don’t expect them to fix what’s broken because most likely they can’t fix it anyway.

What we want is someone to listen and hear; someone who doesn’t have to understand what’s going on to hold our hand or give us a hug. Someone to sit with us and just let us be while knowing that we are cared about.

Sometimes just knowing someone cares is enough. It takes some of the edge off of our pain if we can feel connected to another, if we can feel their love for us.

This is something we can strive to give to others in our lives. We each have an opportunity to be there for others in their pain, difficulty, or loss. Sometimes when someone just needs to unload, let it out verbally or with tears, we can be there for them.

Learn to be there for others and someone will be there for you.

Negativity Breeds Negativity

“One can overcome the forces of negative emotions, like anger and hatred, by cultivating their counterforces, like love and compassion.”
—Dalai Lama

Having found myself swirling in a cesspool of negativity too many times I made the decision to avoid the undertow in the future.

Sometimes we find ourselves in the middle of something negative, usually focused around someone. We gossip with others which leads to more gossip and soon we find we’re talking about another person, and on and on. We get sucked into the negativity and soon it has taken over our whole being without us being aware of it.

I can remember this happened many times at several different jobs I’ve had. And I’ve experienced it with circles of friends.

It makes us feel better at times to put someone else down, but it really isn’t the best way to boost self-esteem. It’s better to find something good in the person we are negatively discussing or just don’t gossip at all.

The more time we spend in negative thinking and acting, the more it becomes who we are until we find ourselves overwhelmed by it. It takes on a life of its own in us and produces anger and resentment over things that normally we might not even notice, and things that are certainly none of our business.

If we stop this negativity and start trying to be positive we can pull ourselves out of it. Soon we’ll realize just how heavy the cloud of it was and things will start appearing more pleasant. We’ll appear more pleasant.

Stopping the negative spin leads to peace.

Raw Emotions Can Blur Reality

“We are all broken and wounded in this world. Some choose to grow strong at the broken places.”
—Harold J. Duarte-Bernhardt

We all experience those times in our lives where we feel so raw that we could swear that every person we encounter and every situation we are in is throwing salt in our wounds. It chafes at us constantly and it feels like it won’t go away.

What we must remember is that while we are going about life with this open wound, things may not be as they seem. We must keep in mind that the world is not out to get us and that we most likely are thinking the worst when that may not be the truth.

This is a time when our issues become glaring to us. If we have trust issues, we think everyone is lying to us. Or we may think that nobody cares about us, when we know deep down they do.

We may ask how we got to that place when just a few days or weeks before we felt good and things seemed to be going well. And it could be that we can see how we got there. Maybe we are going through some growing pains. Perhaps we are dealing with grief from loss. Or it could be a series of events where we are getting hit while we’re already down.

The hope is while we are feeling stuck in the pain and agony of the raw emotions is that it will pass quickly, because we know it will pass. And we hope that what’s on the other side is worth the pain of the growth. We trust that it is.

Eventually we pull out of it; hopefully not until we have felt what we need to feel though, because if we don’t feel it now, we will have to feel it somewhere down the road. And while we feel stuck we don’t allow ourselves to get stuck forever.
We must do the things we know make us feel better until it passes. We take care of ourselves first and foremost and we don’t let others guilt us because we aren’t our usual selves.

What feels heavy now will be off your shoulders soon.

Persistent Determination

“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan ‘press on’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.”
—Calvin Coolidge

No matter what we have going on in our lives we rarely get something we want that money cannot buy by simply saying we want it or by one single effort. We can’t give up on a dream just because it isn’t easy to get. It takes tenacity.

We might be trying to get clean and sober. Or we may want to start a new career. Maybe we are trying to make a sale or promote something. We could be depressed and are trying to do the simple things we have to do just to get by until it passes and we feel better. Again, it takes persistent determination and the unwillingness to give up in order to succeed.

Most of us can probably see many people in our lives that have done something that went beyond what anyone expected them to achieve. It could be someone raised in poverty who managed not only to get an education, but to go past that to achieve great things to help others who are being raised like they were.

Those people in this world who have been injured severely yet they don’t let lost limbs or scars keep them from success. Where it might take us a lot of effort, for them it takes a tenacious effort to do simple things, yet they go on to succeed way beyond what any of us could see them doing.

People who have been given a particular talent and are not using it need to remember that it was given to them for a reason. Sometimes we don’t know what that reason is, but it does have a purpose.

It may take tenacity to find the time to use that talent to help others if we don’t see how we can make a living with it, but life is not all about money. When we use the gifts we were given, we are rewarded in many ways, sometimes this may manifest as money or income, and others times it’s just the joy we receive in giving.

Whatever you attempt, remember to be tenacious and you will succeed.

Wait for the Answers

“The pendulum of the mind oscillates between sense and nonsense, not between right and wrong.”
—Carl Gustav Jung

Sometimes in our lives it is difficult to know what is the right or wrong thing to do. We may be stuck in a job that we dread going to every day or we’re in a relationship that needs serious help. We don’t know if we should leave the job or relationship; we don’t know what the right thing to do is.

And we don’t always have to know in the moment what to do. We wait. If we are patient, the answers will come. The way will be made clear in whatever we are seeking knowledge about. It may not happen as quickly as we would like, but it happens in its own time and way.

When we are involved in something that we know must be changed or healed if we are to remain involved, but everything about that situation is not in our control, we can say the Serenity Prayer: “Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference,” and let go of our worry as long as possible.

Things in life must work through a process. We cannot rush that process or make others be involved if they don’t want to. We turn it over to our Higher Power and wait on the answers.

While we wait, we do what we know to do and stay alert for the answers so that when they come we get them.

Clarity and direction will come in time.

Love and Trust

“Love means exposing yourself to the pain of being hurt, deeply hurt by someone you trust.”
—Unknown

Even in the best of circumstances those we love will on occasion hurt us and cause us to lose trust. It’s just part of our humanness and imperfection that we sometimes hurt others.

Being vulnerable enough to love can be difficult, but if we don’t allow ourselves to love and be loved there’s really not much left in life. Some of us who wear our hearts on our sleeves have many difficult days from the hurt we encounter in relationships, but then we are the same folks who will still seek out love and who give love in a big way.

It’s difficult to trust again once someone we love had betrayed us or otherwise hurt us deeply. We trust as much as we can as quickly as possible. It may be a one day at a time type of progress with two steps forward and one step back. We go at it in a guarded state of mind and keep parts of us closed off to anyone who tries to peek inside.

Hopefully we don’t do this for long. Little by little we allow others in. Maybe we just find one person we trust and let them in until we feel safe again. It’s progress not perfection that matters in the game of life, love, trust.

No matter how closed off you may feel after being hurt, move gradually into a place where you can love and be loved again. Be kind to yourself and love yourself in the process and love will find you again.

Without love our world is truly unbearable.

 

Sticking to Commitments Makes Us Honorable

“There’s a difference between interest and commitment. When you’re interested in doing something, you do it only when circumstances permit. When you’re committed to something, you accept no excuses, only results.”
—Unknown

It takes a strong person to stick to something they committed to doing when adversity strikes. Or maybe whatever it is just isn’t fun anymore. Sometimes people just are not able to commit to anything for very long.

Whether it’s a job, relationship, social organization, club, team, or even a personal commitment such as dieting, exercise, taking better care of our self; all of these things take a commitment to succeed. And if we give up when it’s not new or fun anymore, or when we see that we may just have set our goals a wee bit too high and we become disappointed, then we lose out on everything because we didn’t see it through.

We don’t have to be perfect. And setting goals high and not quite reaching them does not signal failure at all. Failure comes in quitting and giving up on the whole thing because it can’t be exactly the way we planned it. That’s black and white thinking. It’s thinking that keeps us from ever truly achieving our goals. And it gives others reason not to count on us in the future.

If you commit to something don’t give up until you’re finished.

Show Great Strength

“So go ahead. Fall down. The world looks different from the ground.”
—Oprah Winfrey

Sometimes it is in the breakdown and through the tears that we find our answers. We often think that we shouldn’t cry; that we should be stronger than that. But that is not the truth. The ability to show this vulnerability is strength.

So often I want to show great strength, but instead I cry. And yet I know that sometimes great strength means letting it all out. I’m learning that it is OK to cry. Having lived a childhood full of tears, and having been reprimanded and made fun of for crying, made it difficult for me to learn in my adult life that it is alright to cry.

Most of the time when we do get to the point of tears we can’t stop them anyway. And they cleanse us. In those moments that we cry it doesn’t feel like it’s a good, cleansing thing, but it is.

We should forget that we were taught crying is a weakness and instead change our thinking and know that there is not only healing in tears, there is great strength.

Real men (and women) do cry.

Learn from Mistakes

“Even God cannot change the past.”
—Agathon

We all do things that we come to regret either immediately or some time later. We make mistakes that cannot be erased. And sometimes we do things that we know in the very moment we are doing them that the action is wrong.

What we do with those mistakes is another matter. First of all we must insist to ourselves that we learn from our mistakes and less than honest behavior. We don’t wallow in self-doubt, we move on. We make amends when possible to the person or people we wronged. If the mistake we made caused us some kind of harm, we forgive ourselves.

We try not to repeat our mistakes. If we are in the middle of something that we recognize as wrong, we stop the process and start over. Just because we’re in the middle of something there’s nothing to say we can’t stop it right there and make a change.

We remember that no person is perfect and without error. We love ourselves even when we make a mistake. If someone tries to make amends for their mistakes, we allow that and we forgive them, in our own time and in our own way.

If God can’t change the past, we certainly cannot expect to either. We can, however, learn from that past whether it was a minute ago or 10 years ago.

Strive to make a better future while learning from the past.