Every sunshine has a shadow, and
every adversity carries a beautiful blessing.

Instead of seeing things as either good OR bad, in reality, each situation is both good AND bad. When we acknowledge this, we are then empowered to make a choice. We can choose to learn from our challenges. We can choose whether we want to focus on the good OR the bad.

What I have discovered is that knowing that there is both a sunshine AND a shadow, is liberating. Just the possibility that each situation could be interpreted differently, or looked at from another perspective, makes us less attached to the pain we’ve associated to our difficulty.

Experiencing the shadow

In death, we find the reminder to live life.

Death is one of these situations.

It is very easy to look at losing a loved one as a bad thing. Understandably, we can feel dark, cold, alone, empty.

Today, my grandmother passed away.

I was there with her, in her room, sitting beside her bed as she took her last breath. What was once the woman who loved me, taught me, gave me lemon cookies & the best homemade cinnamon rolls on the planet, was now just a body. Cold, lifeless.

That’s the shadow side…

Finding the sunshine

But then, I looked over to the other side of the bed. Sitting on the dresser was a lamp that hadn’t been there before. Someone had placed it there a few days ago. Quite simply, it read:

Live. Laugh. Love.

On the other side of the cold, lifeless body, was a bright, warm light, burning with the reminder to live, to laugh, to love.

In the adversity of my grandmother’s death, was the beautiful gift of a reminder to live life.

Move out from under the cloud

Often, when we are standing under the cloud, in the shadow, it’s difficult – if not impossible – to see that the sunshine is really there. Trust me, though, it is.

If you find yourself under the cloud, and can only see the shadow in your life, try these ideas. I promise they’ll help:

• Sit down with a pen & paper and ask yourself, “How could this adversity be a blessing?” or “What can I learn from this challenge?” Force yourself to write 20-30 different answers, even if you don’t believe them. They can be completely fictitious, the key is to get your mind out of it’s current rut and start entertaining other possibilities.
• Speak with someone who has already gone through the same challenge and is already on the other side of it. Ask them what they’ve learned, how they grew, etc. If you don’t know someone who has been through the same challenge, check out a book (or movie) from someone who has.
• Ask someone to play the “what if” game with you. Find someone who will do more than just support you in your current rut, but will help you see things from a new perspective. To get a different result, you need a different approach. Find someone who approaches life differently and ask for their take on your situation.

Most importantly, remember that adversities are not obstacles to living your purpose… they are a part of your purpose. We arrive at the full expression of our divine potential, through the refining process of our adversities.

Embrace them, they are life’s greatest gift.

This sense of loss, I have learned, is both natural and healthy when one experiences such pain.

I have also learned that in order to live life “all in”, not only do we need to transform our relationship to fear (to step outside the boat), but we also need to transform our relationship to pain (when we find ourselves in the water).

Understanding how the grieving process works has helped me to get through this experience in a much more empowered way than I know I would have handled it in the past. As part of living life outside the boat, I have come to embrace the challenges, failures and pain that are a part of living life. Hopefully what I share will help encourage you if you are also struggling, or if you are looking for the courage to take a potentially painful risk. (Do it, the reward is worth it)

I’m thankful that a while ago I learned about the five stages of grief. So, when this experience happened, I knew what to expect and tried not to skip ahead to just “being positive” about it (thus suppressing any honest emotions that may have seemed unpleasant). Instead, I embraced each step along the way:

1. Denial – There wasn’t much of this. I knew that it was what it was, and it’s not worth the frustration of arguing with reality.
2. Anger – This was a breakthrough for me. Being of a reflective anger style (more on that later) I usually don’t give voice to what I’m feeling in that department. This time, I embraced it and found several healthy ways to give it a voice. (Maybe one or two that weren’t as healthy, but I blame it on the alcohol)
3. Bargaining – This is an interesting one, and though the finality of our decision didn’t much room for it, the desire to remain friends (and close with the boys I grew to love), at times morphs into a yearning to evaluate unexplored option.
4. Sadness – “Hello darkness my old friend…” this is where I found myself while on the beach in Costa Rica… and the real setting for our story today.
5. Acceptance – To be discovered…?

Being in paradise has far more to do with the state of your mind than it does the state of your environment.

So, here I was on the beach in paradise and I was really sad… I found truth in the statement by John Milton: “The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.”

I was in the middle of paradise, but my mind was in hell. I kept playing thoughts over and over again in my mind:

• What went wrong?
• What could I have done better? Why didn’t I do ABC?
• Why did she do XYZ?
• How could it have turned out differently?

With each thought, my frustration, pain and sadness increased…. Einstein was right when he said that insanity is “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” I was torturing myself with unproductive thoughts, and it was a downward spiral…. until I had a simple (but important) epiphany:

Thinking about the past doesn’t change it.

No amount of rehearsing what might have been was going to change anything. So I decided that instead of thinking about the past the way I was, I needed to change the way that I was feeling about the past.

This is where I finally found step 5: Acceptance. Every time I thought of the past, I stopped thinking about what might have been and took a moment to feel gratitude for what was. Very simple, but sincerely, I said:

Thank you for the happy memories.

Every time I thought of how much I loved running on the mountain with her, massaging her feet at night, cleaning up the kitchen after she made dinner. Every time I missed teaching the boys, jumping on the trampoline with them, picking them up from school, driving them to jiu-jitsu, reading with them and hearing them say “we have the best family ever”. Every time I had these thoughts (that previously would have filled me with sadness and frustration), I replaced it with the thought: “thank you for the happy memories.”

Each time I sincerely expressed gratitude for the good times we shared, I felt a little bit happier. I stopped feeling sorry for what I had lost, and starting feeling grateful for what I had experienced. The happiness swelled with each thought. Again and again I revisited each thought, each cherished experience we shared, and said: “thank you for the happy memories.”

Within minutes, pure joy filled my heart. The sadness dissipated and gratitude permeated. A smile crossed my face, from ear to ear, and I became a new person. Gratitude, had not only transformed how I was looking at the past, it transformed how I was feeling in the moment… and as that joy swelled, gratitude transformed how I looked at the future.

Gratitude grew into a feeling of hope… a hope that if I could have had it so good then, that I would be able to have that again in the future.

And that somehow, magically, it could be even better.

I’ve found myself wondering about what is most important to me in life. Many times I have asked myself the question:

What if today is my last chance to leave a mark on the planet? Will I be satisfied with what I am leaving behind?

While recent circumstance may have accelerated this closer to the top of my priority list, it still serves us all well to stop and consider: what kind of a legacy are we leaving?

Today we live in an amazing age where we all have an incredible opportunity to touch lives. Never before have we been able to communicate and influence so many people at the same time.  Social media has given us a powerful vehicle to have a positive impact on the world.  What many could only dream of in the past, is now a daily reality for most of us…

How are you using these opportunities?  In what way can you reach out and share the gifts that you’ve been given to lift others?

If you have had challenges in your life lately, chances are that there is something that you have learned that you can pass along to help another in the same situation.  Our gifts usually come wrapped up in a challenge, so remember to open them up, learn from them and share the value that you gain by growing through them.

Today is your chance to leave a legacy… will you be satisfied if it is your last chance?

Martin Luther King Jr.

In the United States, today is Martin Luther King Jr day. It is a day of rememberance for a great man who had the courage to stand for a great cause that he was willing to lay his life down for.

Martin Luther King Jr faced great adversity in his mission but found a reason to move forward despite the challenges…

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.

Martin Luther King Jr., Strength to Love, 1963

The legacy of a teacher is not the name they create for themselves, but the impact on the lives of those they serve. So, even more important than recognizing the teacher, today should be a day of reflecting on the lessons left behind.

The greatest honor that we can give to Martin Luther King Jr. is to listen to his counsel… though many of the social issues have changed in the last 40 years, there is timeless wisdom in his teachings that are just as important today – if not more so. In today’s global society, the teachings of love, harmony, forgiveness and courage may be exactly what we need to heal wounds caused by ignorance and indifference.

Here are a few of the teachings that we might be able to incorporate today:

• “Forgiveness is not an occasional act, it is a constant attitude.” – Is there a way that you forgive someone today?
• “An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.” – How can you rise above your own worries today to serve a greater purpose?
• “I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.” – Are you allowing hate to burden your thoughts?
• “Only in the darkness can you see the stars.” – You might have troubles right now, we all do… can you see the silver lining, though? Every challenge has a gift to those who will open their eyes.
• “Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy to a friend.” – How can you live more peacably with those you may have hard feelings toward?
• “Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal.” – Just because someone says that something is right, doesn’t mean it is. Check in with your conscience and listen to your soul… it won’t lead you wrong.
• “Let no man pull you low enough to hate him.” – We can’t control what others do, but we are in absolute control of how we respond… Are you letting your perceptions of others bring you down?
• “A man can’t ride your back unless it’s bent.” – We choose what we allow to bother us. Today, choose to be a duck. Let it roll off your back like water.

Martin Luther King, Jr. had a dream, what will you do today to be a part of that dream?

By letting just one teaching change your life, you will be someone’s dream come true…

I really like who I am, but I recognize that I have a lot of short-comings. Both in the way that I see things (my perception of the world and those in it), and also in the way that I put into practice those beliefs (my application).

When we are wrong in the way that we see things, we are ignorant. (ie: The map is not the territory) When we are wrong in the actions we take, we are in transgression.

Mistakes Are Only Feedback

I like to think of both as missing the mark. The first because we are looking at the wrong target, the second because we are careless or irresponsible in the way that we shoot the bow.

Both are falling short of perfection, but neither need be the end of the world.  Instead of seeing our shortcomings as failures, we need to recognize them as feedback.

What Matters Most Is How We Deal With Mistakes

Once we realize that we have fallen short of the mark, we then get to make a choice on how to deal with it.  The end result of our choice is always alignment, but the way we go about it has a huge impact on how well it works.

The Common Approach

Justification is about being right.  It is the process of making our actions come into harmony with our mindset, by changing the way we see things.  This is when we say, “I was justified in doing ABC because so-and-so did XYZ”, or, “anyone would have done the same thing if they were in my situation.”

The basic theme of this approach is that the fault or cause is external.  Something outside of our control, so we responded (reacted) to it according to the way we saw it.  Justification causes us to change the external to match our actions.

The Road Less Traveled

Sanctification is not about “being right”, but about making it right.  This is when we are willing to see the situation through an objective mind and accept responsibility. We swallow our pride and say: “What I did was wrong, and I’m willing to own up to it, and make it right.  I am going to change not only actions, but my mindset. I will honestly examine my mindset & my beliefs so that I won’t repeat this same pattern in the future.”  Sanctification causes us to change our actions & perceptions to match what is right.

The Choice Is Ours

Justification is a never-ending cycle that gets us the same thing over and over again. Because we are continually selling out our integrity to cover up our mistakes, it’s like changing our course to follow a star that is moving in the horizon.

“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.” ~ Albert Einstein

Sanctification, however, is a process of growth. It is asking “what in me is causing this to happen?”, followed by “How can I chance MYSELF so that this won’t happen again?” It forces us to be humble enough to accept responsibility for the entire situation, whether it is our fault or not.  It might not be my fault, but it is my responsibility is the motto of the proactive person.

The world is filled with opportunities for your growth… will you take them?