Let’s face it, right now, we are not going through the easiest of times. Today, I wanted to share with you some thoughts on how we don’t have to regard these moments of our lives as ‘bad.’

Regardless of the experience you are going through, there is no bad and there is no good. Those are arbitrary labels that we choose.

One event, for example, can affect different people in opposite ways. For example, if someone sells their house for less than they wanted, they will see the event as bad. The buyer, on the other hand, will see the very same event as good. The agent might see it as either good or bad, dependent on whether they felt the price paid was too little or not.

Every person involved in one event could have a different label for that experience.

We put the label on the experiences we go through. Our thoughts about the event are actually what we are labelling, not the event itself. Events themselves are neutral. They simply happen, and we then decide whether they are good, bad, or indifferent.

There are no good or bad events.
There are only things we derive joy from, and things we derive pain from.

This realisation offers you a huge amount of freedom since it means you have a choice. You get to decide how to react to or judge every experience. It may seem too simplistic to say this, but you are already making these choices – you just didn’t realise it before.

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Valuing Difficult Times

The universe would like us to value all of our experiences, whether we label them as positive or negative. It would like us to realise, regardless of our reaction, every experience is educating us. Whether we feel positively or negatively about something, it is a learning opportunity.

From the situations that feel positive, we can learn what to do again. We find out how to repeat actions that will lead to the same outcome.

From the situations that feel negative, we learn how our behaviour has put us in a painful place. We then do our best to avoid the same behaviours and circumstances in the future.

We have an opportunity to analyse the events we go through, but many of us label them as “good” or “bad” and forget about them. Imagine the power we can harness if we looked at those experiences and asked ourselves one simple question: “Why did this happen?”.

The best lessons are usually learned from failure.

Sir Richard Branson

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The Law of Attraction

If we choose not to value the experiences we go through, we are missing out on learning. That’s not all, though – we are also blocking them from happening again. To create energy that attracts more ‘good’ and fewer ‘bad’ things, we need to show gratitude for everything.

“But wait!
If I think about the event I perceive as bad, I’ll get more of the same?!”

This is a fair point. I’ve reminded you a lot that you get whatever you focus on, but there are two options when looking at a ‘bad’ event.

1. You choose to focus on the pain of the situation. Your thinking goes down the always/never path. “Well, this is typical. I’ll always be broke. I’ll never grow my bank balance.”

2. You choose to focus on the learning points in the event. This is asking why it happened, looking at the context, and determining how in future you can work to avoid it.

I think you can tell which attitude is going to attract more of the same, in the case of events you perceive negatively!

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Choose Your Spiral

The way I see life is that we are always in a spiral. We can spiral up or we can spiral down. The shape of a spiral implies a constant movement, and it does us well to remember that we are always moving up or down.

It’s easy to experience an event that makes you spiral downwards. You’ve put the “this sucks” label on it, and that tag has a gravitational pull. It will pull you onto the downward spiral. If we choose to remain on the same trajectory, we keep spiralling downwards. We keep experiencing the same events, and more of the related negative emotions. We become the victims of our circumstances and enter the pity party.

No matter how far we spiral down, however, we’re always able to spiral back up again.

To me, spiralling upwards is about using our experiences to plan for the future. I use every experience to work out what I do or do not need more of to get the life that I desire.

You have the choice. What are you going to do? Are you going to choose to spiral up or are you going to choose to spiral down, down?

You have the choice: it is entirely yours.

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Life Isn’t Testing You: You Are Testing You!

Life doesn’t test us. It just sends experiences and we then react in certain ways to those experiences. Life sends things that educate us, the things that we need, but they’re not designed to be ‘tests’.

I was convinced when I fell out with a member of my family that life was deliberately testing me. I spent years turning the relative’s vitriolic words over in my head, but then I realised something. That experience was painful only because I made it painful. It was merely sent as a learning point, and once I let the learning points in, I was able to move on from the experience.

It took me willingly letting in the learning. I found out what I needed to, and that was key in me being able to put the event behind me. I know something similar will not happen to me again.

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Conclusion

It’s time we start really understanding the experiences beyond the labels we put on them. The more we can learn from every experience, the more likely we are to get exactly the situations we want from life.

I get that it takes bravery to be willing to look deeply into events that have made you feel uncomfortable. We bristle at just the thought, right? But, in my experience, it truly is the only way to move on from them without ending up in a pity party all of your own.