{"id":1513,"date":"2014-12-12T07:41:08","date_gmt":"2014-12-12T12:41:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.livelifemadetoorder.com\/blog\/blog\/?p=1513"},"modified":"2021-08-02T06:41:35","modified_gmt":"2021-08-02T06:41:35","slug":"punched-face-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.livelifemadetoorder.com\/blog\/punched-face-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Just Got Punched in the Face by Life? 3 Keys to Help You Regroup and Move Forward"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the most interesting and awesome things about life is that we just never know what’s going to happen. One of the most unsettling aspects about life is we just never know what’s going to happen. One day everything seems okay, and the next, a major shit storm has made its way into our atmosphere.<\/span><\/p>\n

We are totally blindsided, and left feeling a bit bruised and battered. Things have been shaken up in a way we couldn’t have anticipated, and we are left with a sense of raw fear about the future, and what will become of us.<\/span><\/p>\n

I remember a few years ago, I experienced this sort of upheaval in losing my income basically overnight, without any sort of savings. But, for anyone who has read any of my other posts referencing this situation, you already know how I note it as a a major turning point in my life, and a catalyst for creating all sorts of awesomeness.<\/span><\/p>\n

These particularly shitty times can be a gift in many ways, though it may take a bit for you to come around to this way of thinking…that’s okay. Most of us would happily pass up dealing with any sort of unpleasantness if given the opportunity. Only those uber-advanced spiritual masters greet problems with a smile, and look forward to seeing how it will help them grow. The rest of us are kind of like..no thanks, I’m good.<\/span><\/p>\n

But, as we all know, it is these hard times that help us grow, change for the better and all that jazz. Had that situation with my finances not happened, would I still have gotten to this better place? Maybe, maybe not. There is no way to know for that certain. What I do know for certain is that in this reality, it was a major player.<\/span><\/p>\n

So, for all of you who have recently been punched in the face by life, and are still nursing the blow, here are some of my thoughts on getting through this time, and stepping into a better version of yourself and your life.<\/span><\/p>\n

Big, Unpleasant Situations Didn’t Happen Out of Nowhere<\/span><\/h2>\n

You know I love me some law of attraction, so I can’t talk about a topic like this without going a bit into it as I think it will be very helpful when you have been bitch-slapped by life. Here’s the thing…big, nasty situations don’t just come out of nowhere. You are not being punished, the Universe or God or whatever you want to call it, is not dicking around with you for its own amusement. There is no ‘balancing out’ the good with the bad.<\/span><\/p>\n

Since us humans are conditioned to keep trudging through situations no matter how painful, since we have a very hard time breaking free of the life we don’t want and continue to do things that make us unhappy, we get a lot of momentum behind negative beliefs and feelings.<\/span><\/p>\n

And this energy causes us to have all sorts of experiences we don’t like..said experiences are trying to get our attention that something is amiss, and we don’t pay them mind. We keep moving towards the pain, we keep glossing over what we don’t like, we keep pretending things that bother us a lot don’t bother us that much,etc…<\/span><\/p>\n

So, as this energy builds, the negative manifestations tend to become a big bigger. And if we keep ignoring them, eventually something we really don’t like is going to happen.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now, this is the part where I like to remind people that attraction is not a system of punishment or reward being orchestrated by some force larger than us\u2014it is just a neutral process that makes a hell of a lot of sense to me as to why things happen. Our experience is a mirror, plain and simple. And, I’d just like to throw in another little tidbit that might help as well…I believe we come into our particular life to explore certain themes, which may entail experiencing certain situations that to our human mind basically suck.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So, this is not about blaming yourself for the unwanted experiences in your life, this is simply about adopting a sense of responsibility, and realizing we have a great deal more control over our experience than we typically think we do. This is quite empowering, not something that you should get all pissed off about. Wouldn’t you rather adopt a belief system that puts you in the driver’s seat, than one where we have no control and are at the complete mercy of other people and various outside forces?<\/span><\/p>\n

So, if you find yourself in a position where you have received this major type of blow, I urge you to really think about this. What else has been going on in your life recently, and even not so recently, that may have contributed to this? Where were you ignoring, glossing or denying? What things were eating at you that you didn’t do anything about? The more you dig, the more it will become obvious that this particular situation was not a totally isolated incident.<\/span><\/p>\n

This may be a bit uncomfortable for you, but the insights you can gain are invaluable in helping you pick up the pieces, and move forward with a whole new perspective, and degree of control you have never exercised before.<\/span><\/p>\n

You are Being Forced into a Space You Probably Wouldn’t Enter Willingly<\/span><\/h2>\n

You know why we continue to live a life we don’t want to live, and be a person we don’t want to be? Well, there are tons of reasons actually, but one of the biggies is the fact that even though we are not that happy, we are comfortable and we are used to our life as it is now.<\/span><\/p>\n

Things may not be so great, but we are not exactly living in sheer misery, so there really isn’t that fire in our belly to change. We think of what we would like to be different, but actually pursuing it seems a bit too scary. We would have to step a bit too far outside of our comfort zone. We get really good at rationalizing our lack of effort, and denying our true level of discontent. Moving forward may involve making really uncomfortable choices, or dealing with painful issues that we have never fully faced.<\/span><\/p>\n

But, then life comes along and punches you in the face, and you are thrown into the pit. You have entered that scary terrain where all your fears and doubts live. This situation activates a whole lot of uncomfortable shit that has always been there, and has probably surfaced from time to time, but was never ‘full on.’ You start to realize how you really feel about everything. You start to question all your choices up until now. You start feeling things that you have worked very hard to avoid feeling.<\/span><\/p>\n

Here is this murky pit, however, you can make a lot of powerful realizations. You will start to see why you do what you do, and why you feel the way you feel. You will make connections that you may have never made before. The first step in transforming what we don’t like is acknowledging it, and that is what you will be doing here. Simply admitting to all that is going on gets a lot of energy moving in a good direction.<\/span><\/p>\n

As unpleasant as this is, it is hugely beneficial to you. You will gain tremendous clarity on what you actually want, and who you actually want to be. This clarity is crucial because once you have that, you feel much more confident pursuing the life you want because you know you are doing the right thing for<\/b><\/i> you<\/b><\/i>..it won’t feel as scary because that element of uncertainty\u2014which may always be there to some degree and that’s normal\u2014has been drastically reduced.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0Let Yourself Feel Your Feelings, But Consciously Work on Shifting Them<\/span><\/h2>\n

When my income went away, I experienced a load of uncomfortable feelings\u2014in many cases, uncomfortable is actually a massive understatement. There were moments of sheer panic. I was literally living off credit cards, and that clearly was not an ideal situation. Nothing will compound your money worries like accumulating debt.<\/span><\/p>\n

To really shift our energy, we have to let ourselves purge all the crap, so it is okay to be honest with yourself about how mad, scared, anxious or whatever else is you are feeling. It is okay to step into those feelings fully and really let them rip. Honoring where we are now is all part of the process.<\/span><\/p>\n

But, you also have to realize that these feelings are ultimately not providing any benefit as far as improving things go. When I was experiencing my money problems, it was certainly understandable how stressed I was, but I also know that giving into those feelings all the time was not serving me one little bit. Constantly dwelling on the problem and feeling badly about it wasn’t going to solve it.<\/span><\/p>\n

We feel very justified in, and entitled to, feeling badly about the problems we have in our life, but we have to be willing to adopt a different perspective. We have to be willing to acknowledge that we can choose to feel however we want to feel. We get to decide how much something bothers us. Now, you’ll have your moments, I surely did. I’m not talking about becoming some sort of Buddha.<\/span><\/p>\n

What I am talking about, however, is taking control of our life by exercising greater control over our emotions and points of view. Instead of seeing my credit card use as irresponsible, for example, I developed a true sense of gratitude for having them available to me to pay rent and buy food. Once I started working again, I paid them off, so no great tragedies there.<\/span><\/p>\n

You have a tremendous opportunity here to really create some amazing changes, in your life and within yourself, and that is a point of view that is available to anyone, regardless of what is happening.<\/span><\/p>\n

When I lost that work, it was funny because as much as I was freaking out about my lack of money, I also realized that I didn’t like doing those assignments that much..the pay wasn’t great, and some of the copy editors were a huge pain in the butt with their nitpickiness and asking for ridiculous revisions. The only reason I kept doing it was because I felt attached to this income stream because it was my only one. The work was abundant and relatively ‘easy.’ I wasn’t loving it, but I was comfortable.<\/span><\/p>\n

Being released from something I actually didn’t want to do anymore anyway if I was completely honest with myself, but kept doing because I was scared to cut ties of my own volition, was one of the best things that could have happened to me, and I would try to remember this in my moments of feeling badly. This is the amazing power of perspective.<\/span><\/p>\n

In Closing…<\/span><\/h2>\n

I believe that everything unfolds as it should, and there is a beautiful order underneath what appears at times to be utter chaos and crap. Wherever you are right now is exactly where you should be. This experience is here to serve you in some way, and help you step more into who you really are and the life you really want. You have to be willing to adopt this perspective, though, to really reap the full benefits. You are being presented with an opportunity to mold things more to to your liking, to discard what is no longer working for you, and make positive changes that will impact every area of your life.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sometimes you’ll feel shitty. You’ll wish you didn’t have to deal with it. That’s all normal and par for the course. But, do your best to keep your head up, and turn those lemons into lemonade as they say.<\/span><\/p>\n

You can do it…just be patient and compassionate with yourself.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0Your Turn…<\/span><\/h2>\n

What did you think of this post? Did you receive any helpful insights applicable to your life right now? What key did you find the most helpful? What tips do you have for others who are working through a particularly rough time? Looking forward to your comments so we can have a nice chat!<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the most interesting and awesome things about life is that we just never know what’s going to happen. One of the most unsettling aspects about life is we just never know what’s going to happen. One day everything seems okay, and the next, a major shit storm has made its way into our […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10987,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[13,4,30,6,37,38],"class_list":["post-1513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-happiness","tag-challenges","tag-change","tag-clarity","tag-happiness-2","tag-perspective","tag-responsibility"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.livelifemadetoorder.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.livelifemadetoorder.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.livelifemadetoorder.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.livelifemadetoorder.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.livelifemadetoorder.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1513"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.livelifemadetoorder.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1513\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.livelifemadetoorder.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.livelifemadetoorder.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.livelifemadetoorder.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.livelifemadetoorder.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}