Optimism, Pessimism, and Reality

Are you one of  those people who appears to be looking at the glass as being half full or half empty?  The analogy of the half full or half empty glass is a funny one.  Either way, it does not change the reality of the situation. 

Typically, the person seeing it as half empty is described as being negative.  However, the person’s expectation might be for the glass to be full, so they are concerned about it not being the way they’d like it to be.  If you look at it this way, they are actually being positive. 

On the other hand, the one seeing it as the glass being half full, is perceived to be happy with a half full glass.  Does this imply that they never expected it to be full? 

Whatever your tendency might be (to be excited about whatever is happening or focused on what did not happen), the reality of the situation has not been affected by your tendencies. 

If you are setting goals for yourself and then looking back to see if you accomplished them, what happens?

Do you focus on what got done, embellish the facts and skip the part that didn’t happen?  Do you beat yourself up for what you did not accomplish?  Or do you objectively look at the whole picture and focus on what got done, what didn’t, and why?
 
Reality is never affected by our tendencies.  Our own personalities and moods are affected by them. 

If you approach every situation with the goal of keeping it real, you can be an objective attendee in your own life without the unnecessary drama.  So, the next time someone asks you if the glass is half full or half empty, just say, “oh who cares how I see it, it is what it is” and then move on.  That will give them something to talk about…

Questions To Ponder:
1)    How does your optimism or pessimism affect reality?
2)    What is reality?
3)    How would you like to approach life?

Take some time to think this over or ponder with a friend.  If you would like to speak with a spiritual life coach, email or call me and we can discuss how your attitude can affect your life or where you may be feeling stuck.

Surrender To Peace

While having lunch with an old friend today, our conversations lead to moments in life when we folded over and just gave up.  Laughing, we both agreed that in our younger days, we would have never given up or surrendered.  Our dog has to have surgery on his knee soon, and I am feeling helpless, not knowing if this is the right decision and I find myself once again in a state of surrender I remember being in before.
 
There was the time when my new born son had to have surgery and as they rolled him away into the operating room, I gave up and surrendered to something greater than the both of us.  Then there was the time when my daughter had to get stitches on her cut eyebrow and even though the surgeon kept reassuring me that she wasn’t feeling any pain, she kept screaming, I surrendered as I sat there holding her and attempting to calm her down.  There was the time when my father died and I felt lost, helpless, not knowing what to do, I surrendered and gave up trying to figure out what to do.
 
In all of these moments, I gave in to something much bigger than me or the situation I had found us in.

Looking back at all of these moments, what stands out is a great sense of peace that over took my mind and comforted my breaking heart each and every time. 

I can’t help but wonder why we wait for a calamity or something close to our heart to be ripped apart to surrender.  Surrender works when you don’t have the answers, when you have tried everything you could and still don’t know what to do, or why it happened, etc.
  
I wonder if we can access that peace that is beyond our human understanding in every moment of every day.  Is it always there and we are just too busy, thinking and doing our lives away to notice it?  Is it waiting for us to call out to it, to make itself accessible?  Or is it just patiently hanging out with us while we anesthetize ourselves with busyness and drama and then one instant when something doesn’t work out as planned and we get disconnected from our regularly scheduled programming, we bump into it and like an old friend we get reacquainted again and wonder why we haven’t kept in touch?

Whatever the case may be, I know that after all that you could do has been done, it is time to surrender. 

Surrender is not a sign of defeat, it is a request for help.  The term surrender is not one of my favorites, in fact, I remember a time in my younger days when I hated that word.  I would never surrender I thought. Surrender to what?  I thought I knew all the answers.
 
Life’s bumps and bruises have gifted me with a new appreciation for the concept of surrender.  I don’t have to know what I surrender to, I just need to know that I don’t know all the answers and that’s ok.  I need to know that it is ok to make what might seem to be a mistake from time to time.
 
It is ok to give up.  It is ok to ask for help.  It is ok.  All is well. In fact, it has always been and will always be ok.  There is a wisdom greater than what is in our heads that if we get quiet enough, we can tap into.  That is what true surrender means to me.  It is about stepping out of ego and into spirit.

Questions to ponder:

1)    What does surrender mean to you?
2)    Are you comfortable with the idea of surrendering?
3)    Have you ever surrendered?  What did it feel like?  What was the outcome?

Spiritual life coaching is an open-ended process that begins and ends where YOU need it to.  Maybe the concept of surrender is an issue that keeps you from moving forward in your life, or maybe it’s something altogether different.