Success Advice
How to Manage Your Bouncebackability
I am spending my time trying to articulate how having an understanding of the Three Principles – Mind, Consciousness and Thought is useful for dealing with any area of challenge in our lives; in doing that I am sticking to only what I know to be true.
The outside world will not change and will throw curveballs at us at times:
- A breakdown in relationship
- Losing a job
- Death
- Not achieving what we want
- Somebody’s opinion of us
- A severe physical illness
Life can suck. It will throw challenges and it can hurt. ‘It’s OK to ‘NOT BE OK’. This is the kind of heartfelt message I’ve seen a lot across social media and I’m not questioning its seriously good intention.
Of course we should not punish ourselves for ‘not feeling ok’ – showing ourselves acceptance – as well as to others, is important as otherwise, there is a danger that our mood spirals downwards with our negative thinking of punishment for feeling a particular way. Our acceptance though is just our feeling in the moment – I don’t wish for that acceptance to be confused with accepting that ‘this is all we’re ever going to have’. That is not the case.
We are all equipped with the tools that we need to bounce back from anything – any curveball that is thrown our way. We can never be psychologically broken. Which means that, whatever we are feeling isn’t ‘our lot’ in life.
With our understanding in the Three Principles, we know that whatever we are feeling, it will pass. So, of course it is ‘OK TO NOT BE OK’, with the caveat, that we know it won’t always be like that.
“When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.” – Henry Ford
It is impossible to feel one way all of the time.
I once saw a short video of a man with no legs, literally just using his arms to lift his bottom off the floor every metre of the way, to complete a full length marathon. It just inspired me so much, almost bringing tears to my eyes. I was in awe of him, just mesmerised – it was uplifting for me.
We know that something that is uplifting and inspiring for one person may well work differently in terms of placing pressure on someone else to feel a particular way. That is not the intention here.
What is the same for every human being, however, is that we are creating our own reality in the moment. Our own story.
What inspires you? Why is that? How do you feel right now thinking about that inspiration? This brings me back to those challenges we mentioned earlier, that we or people we know, have in our lives.
Whilst it may really, really look like it is the event (the outside experience) causing us to feel a particular way inside, this is the illusion and the common misunderstanding that most people have. We’ve seen for ourselves though, by thinking about our uplifting experience, it creates the experience from the inside out. Otherwise, we would all feel the same way about the man who carried himself through a marathon, which is not the case.
“Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.” – Thomas Edison
My experience
There was a period in my life when I spent a lot of time thinking about when I was bullied at work. This was perhaps even 6 months after it had finished. Remembering dates when things happened, were said or done. I must have spent time thinking about those experiences at some point whilst on holiday, whilst with children, when driving or when in the company of best friends.
My share does illuminate a very important point, in the sense that – I thought about my bad experience whilst involved in arguably enjoyable experiences, such as holiday or when with my children. This works the other way around – we can think of extremely good experiences when we find ourselves in not-so-good circumstances. Similar to what we did a short moment ago with our uplifting experience, when perhaps some of us were not in a good space.
For me, when thinking about the bullying, I punished myself for feeling a particular way that wasn’t healthy. However, those feelings should not mean that we punish ourselves for it – it’s most likely to be normal. We can accept it – accept ourselves for it. As long as we know that those clouds will pass as they are transient and it is impossible to always feel like that.
At that moment, just having the understanding is where our ‘bouncing back’ begins. We’re more ‘bouncebackable’ than we think!
We’re creating our own experience of feeling stronger, more resourceful, more able and hopeful. The truth is, we were always strong – all we may have done, is forget.
You may have noticed, but I purposely haven’t mentioned ‘positive thinking’ in any of this article. What I’m speaking about is something else at work; it runs deeper than sheer determination, resilience, willpower and a work ethic to bounce back. Those qualities without doubt, are important to have and we can use them as a good back-up!
However, understanding how we create our experience from moment-to-moment, accepting ourselves in the moment, knowing that we will continue to grow and that we can’t be psychologically broken – this is impossible, then we are already bouncing back. There is no line to say we have ‘bounced back’ as such, only in the parameters that we might set ourselves or what others have set us. And those parameters are all made up.
Trusting ourselves to know what is our next step is all we need to know in bouncing back.