Embrace Sorrow and Sadness as Natural and Enriching Part of Life

TO BATHE~TO WASH SADNESS FROM THE MIND

Tracy A Gibbons

'When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy. When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.'

Khalil Gibran

What Thoughts are 'Bathing You in Tears' Inside? 

💔What's up in the deep dark reaches of your life? 

💔What blows has life dealt you lately causing you sorrow and sadness in your heart? 

💔What named or unnamed distress is making you feel weary, disquieted or anxious? 

💔What have you lost or fear you are about to lose? 

Life Baths Us in Full Gamut of Emotions

Life is a richly emotional experience bathing us in in the full gamut of feelings--washing us with sadness and sorrow as well as happiness and joy. It is indeed being awash in our deep emotional experience that makes life interesting and worth living. 

While none of us willingly steps into experiences that distress us, much can be gained by reaching through them to discover the source of our distress is 'weeping for our delight'. 

Instead of fearing your moments of sorrow and sadness, embrace them as natural and ultimately enriching parts of life. As painful as they are when we sit in them, they point us towards what we truly value in life and help us live better lives.

You can't experience love without experiencing grief and sorrow, and you can't experience great joy without experiencing great sadness.

Sorrow:  'Bathed in Tears'

Let Your Tears Come. Let them Water Your Soul

Feel Your Sorrow and Get on with Living

💓'If we wait until our lives are free from sorrow or difficulty, then we wait forever. And miss the entire point.'

Dirk Benedict 

💓'Patience is sorrow's salve.'

Charles Churchill

Choose to Love, Not Avoid Sorrow

💓'The source of one's joy is also often the source of one's sorrow.'

Jessamyn West

💓'The only way to take sorrow out of death is to take love out of life.'

Russell M. Nelson

Sign Up for Free E-mail updates

For more than 35 years, Susan Meyerott has been helping people lighten up and step over invisible barriers to change one step at a time. She speaks to your heart, puts you at ease, and makes letting go and moving forward with life easier than ever before.

Do you know someone who could benefit from uplifting messages? Please share Lightarted Living with them. If you or someone you love is interested in learning more about closing the gap between where you are now and where you want to be, join the FREE Lightarted Living mailing list. 

Feel Pressured? One Simple Tweak in Outlook Revives You

Basket of Ease

Lee Bryant

Think back over the last three days:  

💥 How many times did something happen to make you worry something in your life wouldn't work out?

💥 How many times did you respond to that fear by relaxing and letting yourself know 'life always has a way of working out in your favor'?

When Life Gets Challenging~Ease Up

There are certainly lots of things to worry about as you navigate life. But when life gets more challenging, that's the very time you need to be more nimble and flexible in your thinking. 

In short, you need to ease up and change how you think about situations you find troubling.

Do You Feel Pressured or Challenged? It Makes a Difference!

How you think about your current predicament will determine if you'll have limited or more expansive choices for responding to life. 

The good news is you can change how you think, and therefore open up options for yourself. 

Keep in mind:

💓 You're in control of choosing your role in difficult situations, and therefore your response. 

💙 You have the power to choose what matters to you.

Pressured? Yikes! Run away!

Think Pressured? Welcome to Your Reptilian Brain

When you sink into feeling pressured, fearful or worried about a situation, you downshift into your lower, or reptilian brain, where only low level flight-or-fight responses are available to you--the extremes of fighting and withdrawing--outbursts, yelling, arguing, quitting, ignoring, denying, running away and pulling the covers over your head and never going back. 

The lower brain isn't a very empowering or engaging place to come from, and it leaves you feeling weak, threatened, out-of-control and unsuccessful.

Challenged? Let me See....

Think Challenged? Welcome to Your Higher Brain

By switching your view from feeling pressured to feeling challenged, you move up to your higher brain, or cerebral cortex, where conscious, critical thinking is possible.  

Switching to your higher brain puts you in control. It is from this place you're capable of considering calm, clear, focused choices, and listening to your inner wisdom.

Chose the Self-Satisfied Calm of Knowing You Can Handle Life

Give up the adrenaline rush of feeling pressured for the self-satisfied calm of knowing you can handle whatever life throws your way.

The next time you feel the angst of your situation, consciously switch to thinking 'I feel challenged' when you first note you're feeling pressured. Then focus your attention on calmly considering your options and determining what matters to you.

No, things don't always go as you planned. But you do have what it takes to successfully move through life's challenges. So switch it up and regain your drive, determination and opportunities! 

Look for the challenge and give up the pressure. Know 'everything is working out' because you have what it takes to switch from navigating life from your reptilian brain to your higher brain.

What's the one simple tweak? Switching your perspective from 'feeling pressured' to 'feeling challenged' to move into your higher brain to open up opportunities and creative solutions.

Sign Up for Free E-mail updates

For more than 35 years, Susan Meyerott has been helping people lighten up and step over invisible barriers to change one step at a time. She speaks to your heart, puts you at ease, and makes letting go and moving forward with life easier than ever before.

Do you know someone who could benefit from uplifting messages? Please share Lightarted Living with them. If you or someone you love is interested in learning more about closing the gap between where you are now and where you want to be, join the FREE Lightarted Living mailing list. 

Got a Problem? Open Your Mind~'If the Mind is Flexible, the World is Flexible'

Practice the Pause

💓Do you worry a problem to death? There's a better way. 

💙Stop thinking about the problem and leave a space for solutions to appear.

💚Practice the pause and let your brain play off-line.

'If the mind is flexible, the world is flexible.'

Sakyong Mipham

Take a Walk

Take your brain for a walk.

Let it meander wherever it wants to go.

Listen carefully for it's whispered solutions.

'Movement is good for the body. 

Stillness is good for the mind.'

Sakyong Mipham

Dilly Dally

Sit in the garden or at a park, beach or lake. 

Let your brain dilly-dally and play on it's own.

'When we know how to create peace in our own mind, 
we can transform the world.' 

 Sakyong Mipham

You Have the Power to Choose What Matters to You

💓 'If we do not push ourselves enough, we do not grow, but if we push ourselves too much, we regress.  

💙 What is enough will change, depending on where we are and what we are doing. 

 💚 In that sense, the present moment is always some kind of beginning.' 

Sakyong Mipham

Sign Up for Free E-mail updates

For more than 35 years, Susan Meyerott has been helping people lighten up and step over invisible barriers to change one step at a time. She speaks to your heart, puts you at ease, and makes letting go and moving forward with life easier than ever before.

Do you know someone who could benefit from uplifting messages? Please share Lightarted Living with them. If you or someone you love is interested in learning more about closing the gap between where you are now and where you want to be, join the FREE Lightarted Living mailing list.