Tag: uncertainty

"The planet does not need more successful people. The planet desperately needs more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers and lovers of all kinds." ~ The Dalai Lama

Life needs you to love, to come home to your true loving self. It needs you to be open to all that you don’t know, it needs you to listen with the intent to deeply connect, it needs you to want to feel everything, it needs you to recognize at every moment this might be your last chance to get it right.

We get knocked off center, the rug is pulled out from under us, we get slammed by a curve ball out of left field—our life drastically changes, and now what. An unexpected diagnosis, a baby born with life-long issues, an empty-nest home—these are some of the many life challenges that can be considered a loss and therefore necessitate a "rebuilding." When critical life transitions occur, as they naturally do, we are called upon to reconfigure our life.

Quite often amongst wedding vows you hear the words "for better or for worse," and we mean it when we say it. As a couple you have already shared so many good times, and you know how to do that quite easily, that’s what brought you together. However, when it comes to a crisis, you may need a whole new set of tools that you have never used before. Believe it or not, it’s the hard times that really define you as a couple and strengthen your relationship in a measure that is invaluable, thereby making the worst of times some of your best moments. The moments that count when you need each other the most.

Of all the positive emotions, hope is unique. It is the only one that requires negativity or uncertainty to get underway. None of the others, such as joy, gratitude, interest, awe, love, or serenity, need this kind of jump-start. They can be experienced without another emotion to set them in motion. Hope is also different than faith. Hope happens when we have an expectation we can control our future. Faith is when we believe something else holds sway over it. Hope takes place when we can expect to influence the outcome—and we lose it when we don’t think we can.