Wakeup Call

Talking to my colleagues who are psychologists and counselors, we are of the general understanding that it takes a bus to get most of us to start asking the deeper questions in life.  Unless you’ve been hit by the proverbial bus (you jumped in front of it not knowing what you were doing, by accident, or someone pushed you) most of us do not care about questions that ponder the deeper meaning of life.  

We start our adult lives getting educated, finding a good job, starting a family, and following a predictable trajectory.  Even though, we hear of others whose lives did not follow the predictable path, we hope or pray that we are not one of those people.  What’s happening in the world today is all about a change in that trajectory.  Whether it is the economy, changes on the planet (dramatic weather or natural disasters), or political upheavals, little is predictable these days.  Add to that the normal outliers (being fired, getting a divorce, serious health issues, family troubles, money problems, or a general dissatisfaction with the quality of your life) and what you have, is a bit of lingering chaos.  

As therapists, psychologists, social workers, and spiritual life coaches we spend a lot of time listening to our clients talking about the “bus”.  An entire session could be about how they didn’t see the bus coming, how unfair it was that they got thrown under the bus, how it feels being slowly crushed under the bus, how their bus is bigger than their sister’s bus, or even, how no one told them about the bus, …  In other words, we hear a lot about the bus, point of contact, and the tragedy of it all.

Once we get past the “bus”, then we can start the real work and ask the deeper questions.  What are the deeper questions you may ask.  The deeper questions include: what do I want now?  What are my choices?  What beliefs need to change for me to accomplish what I want?  The answers to these questions take us to the core of our selves, so we can better understand and even redefine who we are, and ultimately let go of the bus incident.  

When clients start their personal development work, slowly they realize that there was no accident, or tragedy and in fact what felt and looked like a bus was just an illusion or maybe an opportunity to start peeling the onion of their lives.  When sleeping in a deep slumber, we need something to wake us up.  The bus in our story was just a wakeup call.  When you look at your job and/or relationship, health, or any other kind of loss as a noisy alarm clock going off, staying mad at what happened is like being mad at the alarm clock throughout the day, so much so that, you can’t engage in what is happening because you are still holding a grudge against the alarm clock!

So, if your alarm clock is going off or you just got hit by the bus, the good news is, it is time to wake up!  If you need help waking up or support in the way you want to be when you do wake up, please contact me for a spiritual life coaching consultation.