Recently, I was in a negative patch. Blaming everyone and everything around me for my discomfort. It’s hard to believe that someone that preaches about self-regulation and resilience can end up wallowing in a pit of negativity, right?
The truth is, we are all egoists by nature. The ego wants comfort, all of the time, and when it doesn’t get it, it believes someone else, besides itself is responsible for the discomfort and it never interprets discomfort as an opportunity to grow (remember it’s only uncomfortable because it cannot see how the discomfort could lead to something very good and comfortable). It reminds me of the time I was feeding one of my kids when they were a year old. I had to get up to get them something to drink but while I was out of their sight, they assumed I walked away for good leaving them thirsty. This led to screaming and crying…. when I came back, they were happy to see I brought water and stopped crying. Had they known I was going to get water and come back, their attitude would have been different.
Reality, as I see it, works in cycles. It’s purposefully designed that way to push us to grow, develop and mature. To what extent, I’m not sure yet, I find myself on a path of going around a racetrack of not knowing what I don’t know, then knowing that I don’t know something to finally knowing about what it’s all about. This cycle plays out constantly in our lives, yet it’s repackaged as unique scenarios which are truly not that unique. It’s a reoccurring pattern for growth, the data points are the same but for some reason the scenarios look and feel different.
Unless we know that we’re on this cycle it’s impossible to gain understanding and resilience for similar future events. Resilience will allow you to maintain a positive attitude through the process, a lack of resilience will have you in a negative state and you won’t know you’re in a cycle. The negative state is manufactured by your ego because it can’t see ahead to the future. A negative attitude prevents the cycle from moving forward. It’s like the ego hits the pause button because it wants to stay in a familiar state and any advancement means it will lose its power. When we hold on to our negative attitude, we are unable to convert uncomfortable events into resilience and it keeps us from moving to a more peaceful state. It also can lead to long term chronic issues.
So how do we understand the cycle and buckle up for the ride?
First, it’s important to accept the fact that the system works in cycles. You will, without a doubt experience hardships. The way to use these hardships is to develop a mindset that the hardships are a gift from your future self, designed to prepare you for your next phase. Ideally this will empower you to drive through the hardships with an attitude to succeed.
The first phase of the cycle is not knowing what you don’t know. If you lack resilience all you know is that something negative is happening to you. You don’t know that you’re in a phase of growth and development. You interpret everyone and everything around you as something that is preventing you from being comfortable. You truly don’t know and have no orientation to what’s really going on all you know is that you don’t like it.
The second phase of the cycle is knowing what you don’t know. The key to moving into this phase is an internal attitude adjustment in the positive direction (you have to wake up and understand you’re in a process). Here you don’t necessarily have any answers, but you do come to a point of acceptance. You are less bothered by the situation, have had time to live with it and realize that it’s out of your control. It’s almost like getting an orientation point on the map. The acceptance piece is critical, you relent to the questions of why and why me. The situation still feels bad but it’s almost like you turn the problem over to someone else beside yourself to sort out. This is a huge step in the process and you are typically only a few clicks away from clarity.
The final phase in the cycle is knowing. This usually comes a few days or weeks (sometimes months) after the situation has been fully realized. You can see some unexpected events or aftereffects starting to form because of that uncomfortable experience. I usually say things like “if that didn’t happen, I would have never _______.” Fill in your own blank with something positive. Like “If I wouldn’t have been forced to relocated, I would have never met my wife.”
The true resilience comes when you can maintain a good attitude through the entire process. You enter the process knowing you’re in a developmental stage. Normally, when I enter this process without resilience, I act like a spoiled toddler who doesn’t get his way and then when things work out I’m like “wow, I can’t believe how I acted through that entire process.”
Next time you’re hit with an unexpected difficulty or if you’re going through one now, identify where you could be at in this cycle, adjust your attitude because a negative one only leads to problems and see how things play out. Don’t rush to pinpoint the key take-aways of growth for the event, let them come to you naturally.
