A quiz:
1. The electric drill breaks in the middle of a big project that you had set the whole weekend aside for. You:
a. Tell yourself the drill shouldn’t break because it’s not that old.
b. Curse the drill, the traffic on the way to the home store to buy a new drill, and the long checkout line in the store.
c. Tell yourself and the person next to you in the checkout line that it’s a rip-off that drills cost so much and don’t last long.
d. All of the above.
2. Your printer is feuding with your computer when you need a document pronto for an important meeting. You:
a. Tell yourself that the printer should work because it was working fine a minute ago.
b. Hit the print command over and over.
c. Tell yourself you are an idiot for waiting for the last minute to print the document, and worry about losing your job.
d. Tell yourself that bad things always happen to you
e. All of the above.
3. You leave late and hit a huge traffic jam on your way to your dental appointment. You:
a. Tell yourself the traffic shouldn’t be jammed at this hour.
b. Grab the steering wheel tightly, clench your teeth, and curse the traffic.
c. Think up dramatic excuses to tell the dental receptionist, the dentist, and everyone in the waiting room about why you are late.
d. Complain to everyone in the waiting room that you have way too much to do and not enough time to do it in.
e. All of the above.
4. You are remodeling your kitchen and the granite you ordered doesn’t arrive on time, requiring your contractor to postpone the installation of your counters and new sink. You have a big party at your house Saturday night, and you were planning to show off your new kitchen. You:
a. Chew out the contractor about how he missed an important deadline.
b. Cancel your party and tell your friends (and yourself) how stressful it is to remodel.
c. Get in a huge fight with your partner who doesn’t want to cancel the party, and who just doesn’t get it.
d. Spend the afternoon crying.
e. All of the above.
If you chose a, b, c, d, or e, it’s called arguing with reality, and it’s an argument you will lose. Always.
Here’s the truth: drills break, printers don’t print, and traffic jams happen. Refrigerators and washing machines break, too, usually when they are full. Kids forget to take their homework to school, granite doesn’t arrive on time for your party, and your last pair of contact lenses rip as you take them out of the container. No matter what you are endeavoring to do, sometimes there will be glitches, delays, foul-ups, screw-ups, and mess-ups. Count on it.
Now, answer one more question:
You are in the middle of something and a glitch, delay, or foul-up happens. You:
a. Accept reality
b. Respond with a peaceful heart
c. Find your sense of humor
d. All of the above
When you’re disappointed, does your mood plunge downward like it’s on a roller coaster? Yesterday, my new client, let’s call her Susan, had plummeted like she was on the Coney Island Cyclone. She’d sought coaching after a string of business failures. She suspected she might be doing something to attract this pattern into her life.
In a voice awash with misery and despair, she told me how she’d been incredibly happy this morning at the prospect of landing a fat new contract for her business, but a half-hour before our appointment, she received an email that the deal had fallen through. She was crushed and depressed.
“So what changed the way you feel?” I asked.
“The company changed its mind,” she stated dully.
“How would you feel right this minute if the email had gotten lost in the internet’s parallel universe, and you didn’t know about it?” I asked her.
“I’d feel great,” she said glumly, “at least until I found out.”
“So what really changed?” I asked.
With some coaching, Susan realized that her thoughts about herself had changed. When she believed she had the contract, she thought she was smart and competent and valued and felt energetic and excited about life. When she got the email, she told herself the company had rejected her and she was incompetent and useless. She became listless and empty.
As Susan discovered first-hand this morning, if we attach our happiness and self-worth to external circumstances, like a big contract, a promotion, or our children’s grades, we climb aboard life’s roller coaster. When circumstances are favorable, we are high, excited, exhilarated; when things change, we nose-dive to the bottom.
We hop on a roller coaster to take this ride when we lose touch with our true nature, what Martha Beck calls our essential self. Our essential self knows that we are always sparkling jewels, treasures of infinite value and worth. This has nothing to do with success in any external form–contracts or promotions or our kids’ grades or any other person or circumstance outside of us.
When we lose touch with that part of us, that all-knowing, peaceful, secure place deep in our hearts, we are at the mercy of life’s roller coaster. Our essential self gets buried by an avalanche of neediness and insatiable hunger for positive attention and rewards from others.
People change their minds, contracts fall through, kids fail courses, and others get selected for promotions and awards. That is the nature of life—change and unexpected circumstances are the only constants we can count on.
When we are in deep touch with our value, our worth, and the joy that lives deep inside us, we survive setbacks and challenges with peace and security. A contract can fall through, and we can put it into perspective. We remain positive and hopeful, and don’t slide into abusive or self-defeating thought patterns.
Sure, it feels good to land a big contract. But when we are in deep contact with our essential self, we never lose touch with our worth and our value, and we remain energized and hopeful. We understand that the loss of the contract could, in some as yet unfathomable way, be in our best interests. We save the roller coaster ride for fun and games at an amusement park. And, we realize that the next gift from life may be just an email away.
Questions to Ask Yourself When You’re on the Roller Coaster
1. Are you having any negative thoughts about yourself?
2. Is this an honest, factual assessment of this situation?
3. What happens to you when you hold on to these negative thoughts?
4. Imagine being in the present situation without the negative thoughts and judgments. Does anything shift for you?
5. Is there a stress-free reason to keep the negative thoughts about yourself?
6. What is an honest assessment of the situation that doesn’t include any negative or abusive thoughts about yourself or others?
7. Does this change the way you feel?
