90-Day A Better Me Series
Part III: Living the Journey
Making the Now Count: Rebuilding our Lives
Day 67: Celebrating What Doesn’t Work
“Some of God’s greatest gifts are unanswered prayers.”
-Garth Brooks
I’m not going to lie— This step takes some work! Celebrating what doesn’t work is a testament of our faith. It is us realizing that we don’t know what is best, and that is a VERY hard pill for many of us to swallow. I’ve talked about this multiple times in the series. If we were meant to be anywhere then where we are right at this moment, we would be there. There is something to learn from the moment we are in—
No matter what that moment looks like. As soon as we open ourselves up to learn instead of wishing things were different—We grow! Wishing things were different just keeps us stuck in the hamster wheel. We won’t get anywhere! So, if we are praying for things to change, a more productive prayer would be:
Please show me what I need to learn from the moment I’m in. Help me move past whatever is blocking me.
There maybe a much better plan for us than we could imagine, but if we don’t learn what is necessary to get us there, we will just stay in the hamster repeating the lesson over and over. We may leave one relationship and move into the next, but the same patterns show up. We may leave one job for the next and the same patterns keep repeating themselves. We think our prayers are being answered for getting us out of one toxic situation only to find ourselves in another one. Where our thoughts and prayers go matter to the energy we are putting out into the Universe. We can’t escape or pretend to be somewhere we are not, energy is energy. It’s not judging us, it just is. So, even in the moments we are not getting what we want, we need to find away to celebrate.
“Remember that sometimes NOT getting what you want is a wonderful stroke of luck.”
-Dalai Lama
If we have faith in a Creator who is the encapsulation of love, why would we think what we were going through isn’t a necessary step to help us achieve love’s full embrace? Why would we think a Being who represents love is punishing us? The only one punishing us is ourselves and maybe other humans are trying to, but they can’t break our soul. They can’t destroy the love within us, no matter what hate they may throw at us. Our love is ours. Only we can lock it up in the dark and make it our prisoner.
My perspective of truth is that I’m being led to be able to love to my full capability. Everything I experience is a stepping-stone to build my love for myself, for Source, for loved ones, for strangers, for the environment, for animals, for the planet, and for the Universe. Each lesson I get, I can choose to learn from or repeat. My kids are definitely able to show me the ones I need to repeat. I also get to see where I’ve healed and how I’m breaking generations of unhealthy patterns. Little steps, that’s all there ever is. So I’ve learned to surrender, sometimes with tight fists at first, but eventually, I remember—I’m loved more than I can humanly imagine. Everything is happening exactly the way it needs to for each person to learn what he or she are meant to learn in this life. We have to become aware, accept, and then we get to take action. That is where we celebrate!!
How do we celebrate what doesn’t work, the big NO, the drama, the chaos, the illness, the pain, and the struggle?
9 Ways to Celebrate What Doesn’t Work
- Have a dance party! Make a playlist of music that gets your heart pumping. Know that no matter what the challenge is, it is leading you where you are supposed to be. Honor the love in your heart. If you are grieving, know that you are grieving because of your capability to love. If a partner left you, or you needed to leave them, dance because it wasn’t the right relationship for you to experience your best love story. Celebrate the cancer, illness, or disability because with it you have an amazing tool to teach others love and compassion while learning how to embrace the love within you on your journey through the pain.
- Go do something you love. Have that amazing dinner, explore somewhere new, visit with friends, take that walk, ride, or run; drive to the beach, mountains, or desert. We will be covering this more in the days to come.
- Get down on your knees and pray. Stand-up, with your hands in the air, and pray. Lie down in your bed and pray. Just pray in gratitude to learn from the lesson in front of you, and be grateful for the love that lies behind it.
- Write out a gratitude list for everything that the “not getting” is teaching you. Write about how grateful you are for the mistakes, the lessons, the failures, and the challenges because they are giving you opportunities to learn about perspective. We make the choice how we want to view anything in our lives. We don’t have to be victims of anything that we don’t choose to. Gratitude is a perspective that says, I’m bigger than anything that happens to me. I’m the love inside me and for that I will celebrate and be grateful.
- Create a spot in your life for peace. It can be the bathroom, a closet, a room, a bench, a tree, a chair, etc. Wherever it is, make this your spot to go to when you need to feel peace when you thought you knew what was best for your life and it didn’t work out the way you thought it would. This is the place that reminds you that even your trials are part of the master plan. This is the place where you embrace the love within you to feel at peace with what is happening around you.
- Find a plant, tree, flower, and/or animal that makes you feel AWE. Celebrate the simplistic AWE of life, of creation. You are here! You are alive! That is something to celebrate. If you aren’t where you want to be, make sure you are taking a step on your path in the direction you actually want to be going. Celebrate the AWE inside of you.
- Create something beautiful! I personally love word collages (click here to see more) and writing, but this can also include things like gardening, painting, drawing, photography, knitting, stenciling, needlepoint, etc. Just be creative and use your energy to create something beautiful.
- Hug someone you love. Not just a few second hug. Hug them for a whole minute. Feel the life of someone you love in your arms. Listen to her/his heartbeat and yours. Take deep breaths and match your breathing with hers/his. We can celebrate what doesn’t work by embracing what does—LOVE!
- Play and laugh! Bring out the childlike energy within yourself and find a way to play and be joyful in the moment. If you have an animal play with her/him. My kids and I play the try not to laugh or smile game while watching funny videos on YouTube. Appreciate the moment you are in. Laughing yoga is a fun way to release tension and play. Just play! What doesn’t work matters a lot less when we appreciate what does.
Be real with yourself. If you are feeling like the victim of something that is happening to you, be there with the feelings. Then, look at different ways you can choose to look at the situation. When you are ready to open yourself up to the possibilities of seeing things differently— Celebrate that! Don’t beat yourself up for your bad mood or dark feelings, just know that is where you are in the moment and when you are ready to move out of that moment, you have choices. That in itself is a reason to celebrate. I love seeing the world through the eyes of perspective because I’m never trapped. I can ALWAYS choose to see things differently. I can be the person who is grateful for the rain or who dreads it, the choice is mine and it’s yours too.
With Love and Gratitude,
Rachael Wolff ©2019
Don’t forget to read today’s companion piece: 90-Day A Better Me Letters Series: Day 67 – Celebrating What Hasn’t Worked in My Life
