The other day, I was browsing clothes and saw a T-shirt that read, “Surely not everyone was Kung Fu fighting”.
I laughed right out loud. And I bought it immediately.
This is the essence of life coaching.
We take something that is generally accepted as true and poke around in it to see whether it serves us or not to go on believing it.
Grandparents will want to babysit.
Good grades are better.
Families get together at Christmas.
It all sounds lovely. Like a beautiful picture of the way the best lives go.
But it’s all poison.
Because when grandparents don’t want to babysit or the kiddo fails math, It feels like something has gone wrong. Like life is less in some way. Because none of it is going the way it was “supposed to”.
So painful.
Without conscious supervision, brains cook up wonderful sounding expectations.
And when those expectations aren’t met… Tragedy. Disappointment. Hurt.
Fortunately, there’s another way.
It’s completely possible to manage your thinking so that you’re up for all of it. Whatever comes. And not from a place of dejected resignation, but from a place of purposeful curiosity and genuine fascination for the amazing planet we live on and the complex people we share it with.
If you want to, you can live from a place of wanting things without needing them to be happy.
From a place of loving your loved ones exactly as they are.
From a place of allowing grace for yourself in everything you do or don’t do.
Because they are human and so are you.
It can be pretty easy to see how humans “screw things up” on the regular.
But it’s so much more peaceful to expect “imperfection” and welcome all of it.
Your sister’s going to let her kids run wild. She always does. Your friend’s not going to text you back. Again.
All of it seems like a tragedy. But that’s only because you’ve believe something different should be happening.
You can stop all that whenever you want. Even if you’ve practiced believing it over and over. Like a familiar tune you’ve heard hundreds of times.
You’ve heard it a lot. But it might not be true. Check in and be honest about how believing whatever it is actually feels. Know that it’s all optional.
Surely not EVERYONE was Kung Fu fighting.
Photo by Thao Le Hoang on Unsplash