Should you feel grateful for unwanted things too?
This topic goes far beyond plain positive thinking. Being gratful for unwanted things? Now how in the world can this be applied to everyday situations? After all if someone very close to us expires how can we think such things? I do not detract from the fact that it IS tough and frustrating. But what we can do is gently cultivate a certain mindset that makes it easier for us to not only tide over such situations more easily, but also grab a jewel from the so called hands of misfortune.
Most people are not able to follow this suggestion because when a huge mishap occurs, the incident so shocks their mind which has been used to a certain pattern of thinking that any suggestions on positive thinking and similar stuff are easily dismissed as rubbish. Here I shall share something that can strengthen your mind so that when an accident or tragedy occurs, you can better cope with it.
Cultivate the art of gratitude for every good thing that comes your way everyday. Even something as small as a great cup of coffee can be the reason. It is sad that we humans give an inordinate amount of importance to something we do NOT have and dismiss all the small good things that come our way. We take them for granted in other words. Being genuinely grateful for ALL things have three important benefits.
a) The first benefit is that it opens the gates for more blessings to come our way. This is a metaphysical topic and warrants a full article. In other words, the more you can get into the feeling of gratefulness everyday, the more good things flow your way through the law of attraction.
b) The second benefit is that you start becoming aware of so many things in your life that you were never really aware of. It is only when one is deprived of certain things that one gets to treasure them like never before. For e.g. only when I did not have a vehicle in the place where I shifted too (Bombay) did I realize how lucky I was to have a personal mode of transport back where I was staying. It was only when I encountered horribly crowded roads that I started becoming grateful for the innumerable visits I had to lovely beaches and calm roads out here in Chennai. It was only when I had sweet sambar ( a south Indian dish that is supposed to be spicy) which I just hated that I started relishing the wonderful sambar made here . But this is gratitude of the past. I suggest you take it one step further. Start feeling blessed for what you already have. As mentioned do not do this whenever you feel like it. Do it everyday. Soon this will become second nature to you. What will happen is you will start encountering more things in life that give you happiness. Just try it.
c) Your mind now attuned to being very grateful is stronger and is far better capable of dealing with tragedies.
Now after this is done, the next step is to start becoming grateful even for unwanted things that have happened. This step is tough but since you have mastered the aforementioned first step, its not a tough call. When tragedies strike, just sit down and question yourself, WHAT IS THIS INCIDENT TRYING TO TELL ME? IS THIS THE BEST THAT COULD HAVE HAPPENED TO THE OTHER PERSON? (In case the problem involves another person close to you?) The great Albert Einstein himself remarked that things do not happen in random and all of them have a reason. Lets take a few examples :-
a)Someone close to you has passed away. You ask yourself “I might have wanted her to be still alive, but could not this be the end of her suffering?” another question could be “can this be the new beginning for me? Would she not have wanted that I make the best use of my life and not wallow in self pity regarding the demise that has to come to everyone some day or the other? THANK YOU for showing me something that I might have ignored till now.”
b)If it’s a divorce or a breakup, you could tell yourself “if this has actually happened, it meant that there was NO ACTUAL HAPPINESS here. If indeed there were lasting happiness and joy, it wouldn’t have happened in the first place. The time I enjoyed with this person was indeed memorable, but I THANK him/her for giving me the chance to open a new chapter in my life that is going to be far more exciting and joyous in the days to come”.
The examples are infinite. I am confident that you would be creative enough to ask yourself the right questions and come out of the situation as unscathed as possible and possibly much stronger in spirit.
Take it for granted that your mind will at first dismiss all these ideas and will want to cling on to the past. But you CAN ever so gently guide it and make it create a wonderful life for yourself. I on my part shall do my best to give you moral support through my articles and question answer sessions. Here’s wishing you a wonderful life in the coming years.
P.S
Books in this regard at least in my life have acted like a safety net. When I parted ways with my girlfriend the book “The monk who sold his Ferrari” made me come out of dejection in record time. I mention some books that you may find really useful.
1) The greatness guide :- Robin Sharma
2) The monk who sold his Ferrari :- Robin Sharma
3) Mind power into the 21st century :- John Kehoe
4) Psycho Cybernetics :- Maxwell Maltz
