But, What about me?

What about you indeed!!  This is at the essence of every problem any person has and they don't even know it, because we get so wrapped up in our little world called our life and totally forget or tune out the idea we have a choice to change our perspective.  We forget that we could have a different thought and change everything in an instant.

Here is a real life, 100 pound example.  I work with a young lady with great talent, but is a little quirky.  One day she told me that she had a panic attack earlier and it was almost debilitating.  I told her if she experiences that again, come to me immediately and we can talk through it.  So, a few days went by and I was sitting in my office working on something when she walked in and plopped herself down in a chair and announced that she was having a panic attack.  She was visibly shaking, but clearly was open to discussing how to move out of that state.

I should mention that how I work with people is that I completely clear my mind of any expectation of outcome and I get curious about where the conversation goes.  Through dialogue, the solution emerges and its what I love most about what I do.  So, I asked her what she had been thinking about right before the onset of the attack.  She said her fiancée was leaving for a 4 day trip to the Midwest and she was not looking forward to being away from him that long.

Now if I had my "coach" or conventional counselor hat on, I might have gone into thinking that she has some esteem issues, or separation issues, or some other reason that caused her to physically react the way she was to the thought of being away from her fiancée for 4 days!!!  But the thought dropped into my mind "Whenever we experience angst, fear or any negative emotion really, our thoughts are centered on ourselves and knowing that, if we move our thinking to someone else, we can eliminate our problems".  She was already shaking her head when I asked her if that made sense.  She asked, "How do I do that?".

I told her to think about someone close to her that she could focus on.  She said she had a friend that just had a baby.  I asked her to close her eyes, and visualize her friend cradling her baby, maybe rocking the baby, and seeing her friend smiling with the bliss of being so close to her child.  She said she had that picture.  I asked her to visualize and "send" her friend and the baby her Love and picture it as pink energy surrounding the visualization of her friend and baby.   Now, I had never had that particular concept in my head before, I had no pre-conceived idea of what I was going to tell her when discussing her panic attack.

As I was walking her through this impromptu visualization, her shaking stopped, color began to return to her face, and I told her to just rest in that place and enjoy it for a moment.  She did and then opened her eyes and smiled.  I asked her how she felt, "so much Better" was her reply.  So we chatted a little bit about the shift that she experienced and the fact that anxiety or frustration or sadness is nothing more than our choosing that state over a much more positive state that is always available.

Sure, bad things happen in life, but its what we do with those things that determine how we experience them.  Do I get frustrated or down right pissed off at times?  Sure, but by being deliberate, I can very quickly move out of that state into a much more progressive state that also feels better, because I have made that process a practice.  By eliminating my thinking from be self centered, I allow wisdom from my higher self to come forth, and I have learned to listen to it because it always leads to awesome results or insights.

A mantra that I like to use is, "Do I want to be right or do I want to be at peace".  We tend to get so wrapped up in, "I'm going to do it my way, even if it means fighting and struggling and being miserable, I'm right and I'm going to pitch a tent in misery until everyone realizes I am right".  If we just stepped back and looked at the situation objectively, we could see it ain't working that way, and just maybe if we got curious about another way, the solution would raise its head.

The problem resides in the concept that we know how things "should be", you know, the way things work.  Well look around you, the way things "should be" and the "way things work" isn't working out so well.  The solution is "You could have a different thought" about the way things should be or how things work.  So do it, have a different thought and see what happens, it will be miraculous!!!  But don't trust me, experience it yourself!!!