A Mindset Empowered
The world is not against you.
The strength of your struggles has everything to do with your attitude.
Yesterday, I logged into my bank account and saw a weird charge. I knew I hadn’t been to Chicago in the last couple of hours, but I thought maybe I had bought something online I had forgotten about over the past weekend.
Let’s face it…life is a blur many days. It takes everything to slow the ride and decipher the mosaic of action, people, events, everything!
But paying attention paid off. Literally.
After interrogating my family to see if I was crazy (always a fun exercise!) I figured that purchase was bunk.
Cue calling the bank and filing a claim. In the five mins that passed, another purchase had registered to my account. Apparently, I was witness to an unfolding shopping spree. How thrilling! What fun that sounded like! It was interesting to see where people would spend my money.
I guess we were headed to buy beach apparel next.
When was the last time I had been to the beach?
I stopped further shenanigans in the midst of finding a collar for the cat’s fat neck, threatening my hair into a presentable shape and losing the connection with the claim department, all while coaxing a cat on a leash out the door shepherded by my lion-heart daughter.
She is unflappable.
Now, in the car, we called the claims department, I punched in the address on Lauren’s phone, so we could get Monkey to the vet eye clinic, profusely apologizing to the lady at the bank on my phone for Monkey’s incessant yowling every five seconds.
My account was frozen.
Including all cards.
How was I going to pay the vet?
I dug out an ancient check, Deacon had told me to put in my wallet in case of such emergencies, calmly combating the side-eye the receptionist leveled at me as I explained sheepishly that my name might not match my driver’s license EXACTLY because I had been married last year.
OMG…how shady did that sound?
Long story short(ened).
In the past, I would have announced the universe was out to get me…that I had brought on such energy because I “had it coming,” that my very existence had warranted “bad luck.”
Instead, I went home, worked my tail off, and gave thanks for the ability to pay for our precious Monkey’s eye.
Framing.
I, too, turned unflappable and was able to handle whatever was thrown at me because sometimes we are supposed to pause.
Grateful. I stopped a binge in motion! It could have been so much worse (and so much more work.)
Hysterical.
The pharmacy called and said they had the second medication for my pet monkey. LMAO. The lady on the phone and I had a good, ongoing laugh as she processed my order.
No one is out to get you. No energy is meant to swallow you up. Unless you let it.
As I have told my children growing up, “You will be as miserable as you want to be for as long as you want to be.”
Mindset.
It can turn a day that could tank your spirits into an amusing adventure.
How will you frame your day today?
However it shakes out, you are in control.
Never doubt it. The world has conspired to help you succeed. But sometimes you won’t know the direction.
You will think the direction is not for you because it is not where you want to go. But it just may be where you are supposed to go.
Where you are called.
Every situation is an opportunity for empowerment.
Seize the day and make it yours.
International Business, Marketing, Communication, Negotiation, Finance, Consulting and other related experience in top global Management Positions.
6yHilary Jastram. I enjoyed your tale - monkey and all - but certainly not the experience, all of which you magnificently sorted out by turning unflappable, which is what we all have to do as we work our tails off in the pursuit of momentary blizz. The founding grandfathers were too ambitious about happiness and equality. Jefferson had his original words hijacked too, not the credit card. Good reading welcome.
"Free Thinking is Priceless. Life-Centric Thinking is Abundance Incarnate" ~the trojan GIRAFFE of whiteness~ Seeking Angel Investor> 1-Woman-Improv > HOW TO DEMOLISH RACISM BY 2030 #AutisticAF +Acquired Prodigious Savant
6yFabulous fable, Hilary Jastram. You are on to something quite big around our need - especially when we are battling long-term stressors like chronic disease - to understand what direction we are truly headed in so that we can much more wisely figure out if we have the energy available to struggle with how life is unfolding before us. For most of us, we were unflappable in our youth. A blank slate waiting to be filled with experiences -good, bad, pleasurable, and awful. Then as our years progress, we start to expect life to proceed in certain ways, to unfold according to our personal standards and preferences. In our twenties, especially, we have all sorts of energy in surplus and we can flail around full of melodrama about the vicissitudes of life. But when just being takes effort, and doing takes strategic planning, then we have to all figure out how to put on our adventure-mindset cap & gown combo and just deal with life as it occurs. This is a lesson I personally never seem to tire of learning, despite my insistence I am too tired to go through this shit. In my mind, it all comes down to uninstalling my inner narrator. When that voice goes quiet, I can proceed with what is actually in front of me.