by Ada Porat | May 18, 2016 | Cope with change, Life transitions
Even though most of us resist change, it offers unique opportunities to develop physical, mental and emotional resilience. People respond to change in two major ways: those who avoid change at all cost, and those who look for constructive ways to navigate through the change.
Avoidance serves an initial purpose in the change process: it offers you the chance to gather your energy, make sense of what happened, and plan what you want to do next. When avoidance leads to stalling, however, it can make you completely miserable because it will lead to excessive rumination, disempowerment, guilt and blame.
Whether you are still in shock and avoidance over events in your life, or whether you are actively looking for ways to heal and move forward, current research offers some guidelines to help you navigate the uncertain and often uncharted landscape of personal change, and become gain more emotional resilience to boot.
Responses to crisis are guided by how you conceptualize them. If you see yourself as victim in a situation from where you’ll never recover, then that is likely how you will continue to interpret new information as well. If, on the other hand, you interpret the situation as a difficult challenge that can be overcome with time, patience, skill and effort, then you significantly increase the probability of achieving that outcome.
Accept that transitions, crises, problems, and even tragedies are a part of life. You have not been singled out for special treatment – although it may feel that way at times! Change is a constant in life: careers, relationships, family situations, nature, health, the economy… you name it! At every level of life, changes occur around the clock, and these changes carry within them the seeds of new opportunity, breakthrough and hope.
Clarify what you really want. Do you want to survive or do you want to actually thrive? If you wish to transcend the limitations of the present challenges, you need to set high, yet achievable goals that will require you to dig deep within for the resources you have buried there. Once you know what you truly want from life or from the situation you are faced with, you can break it down into smaller, manageable action steps to rebuild your life.
Commit to your dreams and take action. No matter how lofty or humble your goals, it will take effort and time to accomplish. What action can you take right now with what you know and the resources at your disposal? When you truly commit to your goals, you’ll become like a ferret: you’ll tunnel over, under, through or around the obstacles in your path because you won’t let anything discourage you from reaching your goals.
Reflect rather than ruminate. Ruminating over what might have been, what could have happened, or what you wish you could have had, serve little purpose. It is far more useful to search for meaning in your current situation. What are you learning about yourself in this situation? How could you respond to this challenge in ways that will make you stronger? What do you need to keep a healthy perspective? Reframe your problem by seeing it as a smaller part of the big scheme of life. This, too, shall pass!
Maintain optimism and hope. Sports coaches often say “Attitude is everything.” They know the importance of staying positive! During times of upheaval, developing emotional resilience requires that you look for the silver lining in each cloud. Start a gratitude journal where you can record small victories and notice things that do go well. When you look for what is going right, chances are that you will notice more of that; the same goes for looking only at what goes wrong – the choice is yours!
Reach out to others. People who report the biggest gains after life crisis and change are often those who reconnected with loved ones and bonded deeper through greater transparency, intimacy and sharing. In Africa, people say that it takes a village to help raise a child. You and I are no different – we need a tribe of like-minded people around to boost our emotional resilience and help us get thru difficult times. And there is no better time to expand your tribe than right now, so they’ll be there when you need them!
Take care of yourself. This is an area I often see people neglect most during times of change. There is a tendency to think that you first need to get over the hump and then you’ll be able to take care of yourself on the other side… not so! By doing things that nurture, strengthen and support you during times of change, you’ll develop more resilience to handle the stress of change.
Redefine yourself. Change and crises have a way of destroying dreams, but you don’t have to stop dreaming! When one dream ends, you can develop another, better vision of what you want to do with this precious gift of life in the time that you have left. When you do that, you’ll emerge from the transformational fires of change with more emotional resilience and inner strength.
About the author
©Copyright Ada Porat. For more information, visit https://adaporat.com. This article may be freely distributed in whole or in part, provided there is no charge for it and this notice is attached.
by Ada Porat | Apr 28, 2016 | Change bad habits, Conscious living, Cope with change, Fear and anxiety
When we look out at the world, we see situations everywhere that appear to be broken and need fixing. What would happen if we could befriend problems and life crises as opportunities for growth instead?
There is an active intersection between our own psychological/spiritual health and the actual landscape of our life. What happens in the collective does impact us as individuals; likewise, what we do as individuals has an impact on the collective.
The way we address crises and problems has a rippling effect for better or for worse into the larger world. It offers us opportunities for positive change and personal growth. Author Tom Atlee calls crisis “the dangerous breaking of glass that opens locked windows of opportunity that require perceptiveness and courage to move through with care.”
It has been said that evolution, like water behind a dam, knows where all the cracks are, and is working on them right now with increasing intensity.
Could it be that something new is trying to happen, seeking the transformation of the whole in life? Might our out-of-balance world be an opportunity for increased spiritual consciousness seeking to awaken the values of the heart – compassion, generosity, forgiveness, and a desire to live in harmony with others?
I propose that the only way forward through times of crisis, upheaval and difficulty is to befriend our problems as the messengers that they are: highlighting the empty, loveless or meaningless places in our life that thirst for something meaningful and real.
To anxiously hold to the way things were – wanting no disruption in our lives – is to avoid evolving because our individual status quo is really closely tied to the larger malaise on the planet.
I remember being surprised years ago when I read Care of the Soul by Thomas Moore. One of the chapters he titled “The Gift of Depression.” I had to think about that.
What if we learned to cope with adversity more effectively? Rather than failing to notice the opportunities that adversity offers, we could see the problem and the solution as two sides of the same coin. To get to the other side, we often are called to walk thru turbulence we would rather have avoided. But denial disempowers, whereas facing our problems empowers us to take meaningful action!
In fact, today’s heartache may well carry the seeds of tomorrow’s happiness. What would happen if the hatching chick decided that it is too much effort to peck through the shell that encases it?
Who would you be today if it weren’t for your struggles? Think back. Wasn’t there a jewel of awareness and growth offered in almost every tribulation?
It is the decisions you’ve made at each challenging point in your life that determined where you are today.
When we treat each obstacle on our path as a unique opportunity for growth, we start asking different questions. We stop asking “Why this?” Why me?” and “Why now?” Instead, we start asking how we can navigate through the challenge, what we need to learn or do, and we accept responsibility for our part in the unfolding journey of our lives.
We befriend obstacles as messengers for deepening our faith and we dig deep to discover hidden gifts and abilities we never knew we had. We start looking for what we can do with the resources we have right now – an empowering place from where we can learn, evolve and become the powerful beings we were created to be.
In fact, I believe that when we connect to the true potential within us, we also find there the ability to help restore love, hope and unity to the wider world around us.
We could, as Tom Atlee suggests, “use our differences and our challenges creatively, not simply as problems to avoid or solve, but as signs of new life pushing to emerge – and as invitations into a new, more whole tomorrow.”
Responding appropriately to this invitation is of the utmost importance in our changing world. The waves of change that sweep through all layers of life like a tsunami, carry seeds of opportunity.
By viewing problems as opportunities into a “not-yet-known” future, instead of fearing the unknown, we can move forward gracefully.
About the author
©Copyright Ada Porat. For more information, visit https://adaporat.com. This article may be freely distributed in whole or in part, provided there is no charge for it and this notice is attached.
by Ada Porat | Mar 9, 2016 | Change bad habits, Conscious living, Fear and anxiety, Mindfulness
Emotional pain can traumatize us long after the event that triggered it. The more traumatizing the event, the more we tend to revisit memories, thereby keeping the pain alive.
We do this not because we wish to suffer, but because we simply don’t realize the power of our thoughts. We don’t recognize that it is not the traumatic event, but our thinking about that event, that continues to perpetuate the pain.
The mind does not know the difference between actual events and thoughts about them. To the mind, thoughts are as real as the events they represent, and so we keep reliving the painful trauma of past events as long as we replay these thoughts in our minds.
Breaking free from this cycle requires that we recognize the process and choose different responses to it. As soon as we stop giving our life energy to memories that seem to be overpowering, those memories lose their illusion of power. In the very moment of choosing differently, we are also released from the ongoing emotional pain of suffering over what had happened to us in the past.
Negative memories do not have an individual, independent existence. When we falsely believe that what happened in the past still has power over us, we allow ourselves to revisit the tyranny of emotional pain triggered by those past memories. It really serves no purpose now!
Think about it for a moment: in order for the person who broke up with you to still be able to hurt you now, in this moment, they need to be breaking up with you now, at this very moment. In reality, the event has passed and is no longer taking place in your present reality – yet you continue to suffer because you are replaying the details of the event in your mind, allowing the memories to trigger emotional pain each time you think about it!
Nothing, absolutely nothing can have power over us unless we give it that power. When we truly understand this principle, we can begin to free ourselves from the emotional pain of negative memories.
Instead of seeing ourselves as victims of circumstances beyond our control, we can exercise our innate power to choose what we focus on. And whatever we choose to focus on, becomes our reality.
Our perception produces what we experience. This perception is made up of many different elements, all of which are based on our subjective interpretation of reality – not the objective reality. When we view events this way, we relate to life through these subjective filters of attachment, desire, lack or fear.
These subjective filters of perception form our viewpoint of any given experience and then flavor our interpretation with emotion. It is not the relationship breakup that causes our current pain, then, but the painful meaning we attached to that memory. Our perception labeled the event as “heart-breaking” or as our “one and only chance at love” or as a “vicious betrayal.”
In reality, the event itself was simply part of the ongoing unfolding of life – it was neither good nor bad. It’s our interpretation of the event that creates the joy or emotional pain we associate with it.
If our perception causes pain, then why don’t we just let events happen spontaneously without grabbing onto them and interpreting their ‘meaning’ from our particular viewpoint? Why do we choose to continue experiencing the emotional pain?
I believe we interpret events through the filters of our perception because we’ve become so used to drama and trauma, pain and suffering that we are not sure who we are without it. As strange as it may seem, we welcome the habitual demons of emotional pain because it makes us feel alive.
But this is not our true nature. It’s always the false self – the ego – that thrives on the drama of emotional pain. At the same time, you and I are not just egos; we are spiritual beings who live in human form with the ego as our constant companion.
We can free ourselves from the false suffering of ongoing emotional pain to embrace a higher way of life! The perception of pain as evidence of being alive does not come from the soul; it stems from the ego’s attempts to resist change and maintain the status quo at all costs. All these conditions that seemed so real and painful are the creation of faulty perception as directed by the ego!
It is our misguided belief that past events have the power to hurt us that makes them continue to appear hurtful and propagates the emotional pain. Once we choose to remove our focus from the events, the energy around the memories collapses and we can move on.
We can accelerate this process by bringing fresh logic to the situation. Everything that is created has both a beginning and an end; therefore, everything we experience over the course of life, eventually passes to make room for new events and experiences. And so, even the most painful events of our lives also pass with time. We can help this process along by becoming mindful of what we focus on and staying present in each moment.
Even if we’ve suffered for years because of the way our perception interpreted what happened to us, we no longer need to suffer this pain. Now that we understand how the process works, we no longer need to be a victim of our own misunderstanding. We can inwardly say to that suffering ego state,
“Ego, you are not the ruling power in my life – you only think you are. The knots in my life that have me all tied up have no power over me outside of my own perception. It is ego’s perception that led me to interpret these events as emotional pain, but now I choose to see things as they really are.”
Then we can turn our focus away from the ego’s habitual re-runs of past traumas. We can let go of the emotional pain. Instead, we can turn toward Truth within to reclaim our peace in this present moment.
When we release the past, we become free at last to embrace our birthright of peace in this present moment.
©Copyright Ada Porat. For more information, visit adaporat.com. This article may be freely distributed in whole or in part, provided there is no charge for it and this notice is attached.
by Ada Porat | Feb 22, 2016 | Decision-making, Life coaching
Life usually rewards not those who dream big, but those who persevere in actively pursuing their dream. They know that perseverance is the key that realizes dreams. I’m sure you’ve seen these winners: they’re the ones who stay focused, who take action daily to realize their dreams, and who repeat that winning formula until the results show up.
What is your dream? What is that one thing that would get you out of bed with a spring in your step? What is the living legacy you want to leave behind as a blazing trail for others to follow?
More importantly, what are you doing right now – today – to realize your dream?
Every dream starts with making a choice; yet it is the consistent work of perseverance that transforms it into reality. It is how you follow through and persevere, that separates winners from losers. What happens after you choose a goal, path or purpose, is going to determine the outcome you get.
Perseverance is the ingredient that converts dreams into reality. The more you persevere, the better your chances of success. And while developing perseverance can be summarized in three simple steps, it is not always easy to do. It requires you to go out of your comfort zone and to practice self-discipline; to keep on keeping on, even when all the odds seem to be stacked against you!
You can develop perseverance by continuously applying three simple steps: Focus, Act, and Repeat. Together, these three steps form the acronym FAR, and that is quite appropriate – when you put them into practice, they’ll take you the distance to persevere until you realize your dream. Let’s look at each of them:
Focus
Energy flows where attention goes, so focus on your goals. I learned the value of this principle when I was five, learning to ride my older brother’s bike with one leg through the frame. I’d pedal down the farm road along the fenced-in chicken coop – and how I dreaded that rough wire fence!
Try as I might, I’d end up crashing into the fence until my brother told me: ‘Focus on where you want to go, silly!’ It tried it… and it worked!
Are you focused on the possibilities and potential in your life, or are you focused on failure and fear? Pay attention to where your focus goes because that’s where you’ll end up! You don’t have to ignore potential obstacles and dangers; you simply need to acknowledge their existence, feel the fear and continue on your path anyway.
Act
“Let resolution grasp what’s possible
and seize it boldly by the hair;
it will not get away…”
These words from Goethe’s Faust emphasize the need for bold action to realize your dreams. Goals and dreams may be exciting, but until you take action to realize them, they will remain just that: pipe dreams. If you have a dream for your life, you need to take action daily to realize that dream.
What action have you taken today to move closer to your goals? Even when you cannot take bold steps at a given time, there are always smaller steps you can take. Simply do what you can, refocus, and then do some more. That’s the formula for success!
Repeat
Any personal trainer or coach will tell you that it is persistence and perseverance over time that pays off in excellence and success. In a recent interview, a well-known tennis coach was bemoaning the lack of emergent American tennis talent. When asked why, he answered that it’s due not to a lack of talent, but because of a lack of perseverance. Promising young players don’t want to put in the hard work; they don’t persevere until their talent is sufficiently honed for success.
In a world where so much can be accomplished at the push of a button, the core ingredients for success remain the same as ever.
Focus. Act. Repeat.
Continue to focus on where you want to go and take action to move you closer to you goals each day. Repeat the process, and your perseverance will burn through obstacles like butter. You can realize your dreams – so go for it!
©Copyright Ada Porat. For more information, visit adaporat.com. This article may be freely distributed in whole or in part, provided there is no charge for it and this notice is attached.
by Ada Porat | Jan 27, 2016 | Conscious living, Gratitude, Mindfulness
One of the most common yearnings expressed by individuals in the West, is the desire for happiness. The founding fathers of the United States declared that the American people have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And pursue it we have!
Hollywood advocates that that we will find happiness when we are rich enough, find true love, or encounter some magical event. We are conditioned to look for happiness somewhere else: in the future, in someone else, or in some outside situation.
Question is: how well has it served us?
When we look at the sky-rocketing levels of addiction, breakup, depression and unhappiness that run rampant in this society despite it being one of the most affluent in the world, it is clear that chasing after happiness outside ourselves, does not work.
You see, happiness is not out there; it is an inside job. And that means that you and I have the power to be happy right now, right where we are. If we are unhappy, perhaps it is time to take a look at the nature of happiness so we can stop dreaming about it and take practical steps to become happier. Yes, happiness is not something we stumble upon; it is something we create, something we become.
Researchers have found that we do not need to always get what we want in order to be happy. We can be just as happy if we don’t get what we want, as we’d be if we do actually get what we want.
In fact, we can manufacture our own happiness – and if we desire happiness, it is essential that we learn how to do this.
Researchers distinguish between two kinds of happiness: natural and synthetic happiness. Researcher Dan Gilbert defines them this way: “Natural happiness is what we get when we get what we wanted, and synthetic happiness is what we make when we don’t get what we wanted.”
Natural or spontaneous happiness is what we experience when things are going our way and fortune smiles on us. This is the kind we are most familiar with, but it is also fleeting, unreliable and intermittent.
Synthesized or manufactured happiness is the kind of happiness we create when we change the way we look at things; the happiness we synthesize when we learn to make lemonade from the lemons in our lives, and it is every bit as real as spontaneous happiness.
In fact, when we fixate on finding spontaneous happiness, we miss the opportunity to manufacture happiness with what is already in our lives, and we become miserable!
A good example would be looking at how the two types of happiness interact in relationship. In dating, we look to find what we want; in marriage, we need to find a way to like what we’ve gotten!
New relationships are marked by spontaneous happiness; whereas the challenge of marriage is to learn how to synthesize happiness with the person and situation we have chosen. Chasing after the next fleeting experience of spontaneous happiness won’t last; it is the process of manufacturing happiness within the constraints of our situation that brings lasting fulfillment and joy. Ironically, this process of synthesizing happiness works best when we are totally stuck or trapped!
Synthetic happiness acts like our psychological immune system. It works to keep us happy. In his book, Stumbling upon Happiness, author Dan Gilbert describes it as a system of cognitive processes, largely non-conscious, that help us change our views of situations so we can feel better about the situations we find ourselves in.
Author Wayne Dyer put it another way when he said, “When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at, change.”
Our brains are notoriously bad at predicting our happiness. Experiments have repeatedly shown that we overestimate both anticipated pleasure and pain. Our prefrontal cortex simulates that getting something we want, is more important than it really is – it exaggerates the impact of events on our happiness, whether positive or negative.
For example, we overestimate that winning the lottery will increase our happiness or that losing the use of financial security or becoming a paraplegic will completely ruin us. In reality, individuals test at similar levels of happiness one year after winning lottery or becoming a paraplegic. In other words, both our desires and worries are overblown.
We can manufacture our own happiness from within – right now, with where we are and what we have. When we learn to synthesize happiness from within, the very events and outcomes we dread, can turn into new opportunities for happiness.
Studies further indicate that freedom and choice can negatively impact our happiness. When we have choices, we worry about opportunities lost. Think about that the next time you are in the grocery aisle trying to select a product!
Freedom is the enemy of synthetic happiness. While freedom can bring about spontaneous happiness when it offers what we want, it robs us of the opportunity to synthesize happiness. You see, we only learn to like what we have when we have no choice! It is when we are feeling stuck that we have the opportunity to create happiness from within by learning to appreciate what we do have.
Most of us tend to have a basic level of happiness that we revert to. Not everybody ascribes to the “bullying cheerfulness” of false happiness, as physician Andrew Weil describes the prevalent cult of happiness in America.
In his book, Spontaneous Happiness, Weil says that there is an inverse relationship between affluence and contentment: The more we have, the less contented we seem to be. In America, the cultural expectation that we’re to be happy all the time and our children should be happy all the time is toxic, and it gets in the way of true emotional well-being.
Mahatma Ghandi perhaps put it best when he said: “Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.”
Genuine happiness comes from within, and is synthesized by a lifestyle that integrates personal values, gratitude, laughter and forgiveness. In the long run, these qualities allow us to synthesize happiness as an enduring form of contentment and serenity, independent of external circumstance.
About the author
©Copyright Ada Porat. For more information, visit https://adaporat.com. This article may be freely distributed in whole or in part, provided there is no charge for it and this notice is attached.
