Between holding on and letting go: a positive mindset in front of adversity.
We all have those moments when it truly feels like “when it rains, it pours”.
In those dire moments, we just feel like the World is conspiring against us and we a wave of difficult emotions washes over us: anger, despair, anxiety, helplessness and even hopelessness.
In those moments, we have a choice. A choice to get engulfed in those ‘negative’ emotions or we can marvel at the pieces of peace, kindness, love, beauty, joy, … we experience in the midst of those difficult moments.
When it rains, it pours! For real!
In a recent blog, I shared with you about a hike in the rainforest (read about it here). How about mid-way through the trail, I told my family to leave me behind so they could get to the waterfall and take pictures. This is where this story starts.
I am on a trail and I literally cannot go anywhere. The rocks on the trail are slippery due to the heavy rain and the mountain is steep. I can see some blue in the sky and I know that not too far away, there is a beautiful sun shining. But where I am stationed, I can only feel the rain falling on this make-shift parka in transparent plastic. Water is drooping from everywhere, and because I am sitting, my shoes are soaked.
I try to meditate to help me focus on something else than the fact I am being soaked. I try to see the positive: I am in front of beautiful little stream in the rainforest. The irony : my full body rain gear is lying on my bed in our hotel room. The humor: the more I meditate and try to focus on the positive, the heavier the rain gets. I am not lying!
And then I let go.
I let go of the expectation. I let go of the ‘performance’ in my meditation practice. And I just experience the moment.
Between holding on and letting go!
After I sustained a spinal cord injury, I struggled for years to adapt to what life had become. I kept referring back to what life should have been. To where my career should have led me. To what I could have been doing with my friends. To what my personal life should look like. The more I held on to this storyline, with all the losses it now encompassed, the more depressed I felt. The more powerless. The more hopeless.
And then I was introduced to positive psychology and I was reminded that I could both experience grief AND savor the beautiful around me. It made me think of all those times I waited for my physiotherapist to be ready to make me work in rehab. Those little moments I could admire all the strengths and beauty there was in the room. How all these people with a new acquired spinal cord injury would work hard to regain every bit of muscle control, how their family members were there encouraging them, how each rehab professionals would hold on to hope for their clients, until we could hold it for ourselves.
On that trail in Hawai’i, it might have been pouring, I may have been soaked, but I was alive and well. The rain felt warm, the sky was blue, the trees a deep green. People walking down the trail were smiling, the birds were singing and the waterfall near me was dancing. And it smelled fresh. Why would I give this moment a negative feeling to it? When it was just precious.
Perspective and Character Strengths
Letting go of my expectations of what the day would look like, just as letting go of what my life should have been, liberates me to savour the life I currently have. And that is a gift in of itself. Sometimes holding on hurts us more.
Letting go is not about making it all fluffy and pink.
Letting go is about making space to experience the moment for what it truly is: the bad… AND the good. I may be soaked, but I am in Hawai’i. I may have a spinal cord injury, but I get to travel with my family and experience the world with them.
I invite you to learn more about your Character Strengths, which may include Perspective, Appreciation of Beauty and Excellence, and Gratitude, at the VIA Institute .
written by
Marjorie Aunos, PhD., is an internationally renowned researcher, adjunct professor, clinical psychologist, and award-winning inspirational speaker from Montreal, Canada.
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