How we choose to perceive life can determine whether we rise or fall

As the late Wayne Dwyer used to say, “Change the way you look at things, and the things you look at change”.

So many things happen in our lives – good things, bad things and unforeseen things. Things change all the time. When you think about it, life is one big constant flow of change. Life throws some curveballs at us and often how we react to them can be very liberating or very damaging for ourselves.

We all know life can go in any direction but what makes the experience different from one person to the next? What makes one person rise and thrive, and another person stumble and fall?

I believe the answer lies in our thoughts and our attitude. How we embrace the good and the bad; the ups and the downs says a lot about a person. Our thoughts create our reality and how we choose to perceive a situation can be a deciding factor in whether we rise or fall.

We are all shown testing times on this journey called life and that’s okay, that’s to be expected. People often say it’s not the action that’s done but the reaction that’s most important. This is a vital life lesson and if we can get a grasp on this, then we can appreciate the beauty in change. At the end of the day, life happens whether we’re engaging with it or passively moving along, but we want to learn to show up for ourselves, embrace change and nourish our minds in the process.

In difficult times, we can so easily become self-critical and self-deprecating. However the challenge is to know when to stop, when to wake up and when to change our thinking. When difficulty hits, why not challenge your thinking and ask – what is the lesson to be learnt here; is there an opportunity to grow; what is the bigger picture; what have I been missing; what can I do differently; what is the value in this experience?

I believe when we stop and ask these kinds of questions, new possibilities and new horizons open up for us. We make a small but drastic shift in our thinking and we begin to look to ourselves for answers, we begin to listen a little more intently to our intuition, and we begin to feel a force bigger than ourselves.

Once we are tuned in and connected to this bigger force, life cannot wrong us. We can learn to see and appreciate that life happens exactly as it’s meant to happen for each of us. Each of us has our own path and our own learning to do; surviving change is just a part of this. We do our greatest learning during challenging times.

Difficult and all as this may be to grasp, if we learn to surrender a little, live in the present moment and trust that life supports us, difficulties become a little easier to fathom. The real challenge appears when life throws up some serious shit to deal with. This is the time your trust and positivity needs to truly shine! And this is not to say, avoid all feelings except positive ones because we must honour our feelings (this is not about repressing negative feelings), but we must also not let them consume us. Our ego can easily take over and constantly fill our mind with questions, fears, injustices, anger and self-righteous thoughts but we must feel whatever emotions show up, acknowledge them and then let them go.

There is so much beauty in letting go. Things happen all the time, change happens all the time but learning to take stock and relax a little to the ebb and flow of life does wonders for the mind, body and soul. There is so much beauty to living in the present moment. Sometimes we over exert ourselves fretting over things that never come to pass, when we could have relaxed and enjoyed the ride. The benefits of taking this approach are unrivalled.

I suppose we are all on our own journey, our own life path. We all have learnings to take from this life and (hopefully!) share with others. Change and difficulties are inevitable but it doesn’t have to be all doom and gloom. By fostering new thinking and approaches, unimaginable benefits can be gained. And remember, no matter what, we always have a choice – rise or fall, thrive or survive, ebb or flow.