The Eye of the Storm
When the world around us becomes more chaotic than normal, the only palatable explanation may be that the planets are somehow misaligned. At least then we can say that WE’RE not in any way responsible.
It’s difficult to understand that taking responsibility for what happens in our lives isn’t about blaming one’s self or loudly proclaiming, “Yes, I caused this to happen.” What nonsense! Life happens. Included in the deal are all sorts of things we’d rather not contend with: death, taxes, war, illness, co-workers who get laid off, having more work than time to do it and people we love who are suffering for a myriad of reasons.
Taking responsibility is about saying, “Okay. It is what it is. What’s my strategy for dealing with it?”
All our lives we hear advice about making the best of a situation. It turns out that it’s very good advice.
This year has been a time when I have been undergoing a tremendous amount of change as have many of the people to whom I am very close. Change can be painfully difficult. It often involves giving up something we’re extremely comfortable with in order to gain something that is a complete unknown. Change takes courage.
It is critical to remember that, when those around us are suffering, it is not happening TO us; it’s happening NEAR us. Too often we take on the pain and problems of others in a misguided effort to help them and what we end up with is two people in a very deep ditch with no ladder to climb out.
They say that the eye of the storm is the calmest place to be. When the storm is raging all around you and others need your support, use your focus to BE the eye of the storm. You will be able to do so much more for those who need you. If you throw yourself headlong into the wind tunnel, you become another one who needs help.
Perhaps the most difficult thing to remember is that it’s perfectly all right to be happy when others are not. Just as you cannot become sick enough to make someone else well, you cannot become depressed enough to make someone happy.
Everyone is subject to the Law of Attraction that says, “You attract more of what you focus on.” If, while trying to “be there” for a friend, you do so by joining them in their distress, then you have succeeded in providing them with one more distressful point of focus.
Be the eye of the storm for those you want to help. See them as getting through to the other side. Remember that struggle is Nature’s way of helping us to grow.
The Butterfly
A man found a cocoon of a butterfly.
One day, a small opening appeared.
He sat and watched the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to force its body through that little hole.
Then it seemed to stop making any progress. It appeared as if it had gotten as far as it could, and it could go no further. So the man decided to help the butterfly. He took a pair of scissors and snipped off the remaining bit of the cocoon. The butterfly emerged easily.
What the man did not understand is that the restricting cocoon and the struggle against it to get through the tiny opening were Nature’s way of forcing fluid from the body of the butterfly into its wings. The more he struggled to be free, the stronger his wings became so that, once he achieved freedom from the cocoon, he was ready to fly.
In his kindness and his haste, the man kept the butterfly weak and, for the remainder of its days, it crawled around with a swollen body and small, shriveled wings.
It never was able to fly.
-Author Unknown
