How To View Challenges With Peace

Along our journey though life we are faced with many challenges and obstacles.  For the majority of people, challenges are thought to be negative.  The idea of difficult challenges often stirs up fearful thoughts, thus fearful emotions, and ultimately negative and fearful reactions.  If this sounds like you, you are not alone.  The beautiful and empowering news; you can tell yourself a different story when these inevitable challenges rear their ugly head.

If you want to learn a proven strategy to view challenges with peace, continue to read this blog and watch the vlog below.

Challenge

challenge:

Something needing great mental or physical effort in order to be done successfully. 

Love or Fear:

A Course In Miracles states that there are only two ways to think.  We are either thinking in Love or we are thinking in Fear.  When we are facing a challenge it is important to think, feel, and act in love, rather than in fear.

Here is the reason why.

Fear:

When we are living and thinking in fear, we are allowing the ego to create illusions that generate negative and fearful thoughts. Ultimately these thoughts are creating a disconnect and it is hindering our ability to respond as our best self.  When we are not responding as our best self, it will pull us farther away from learning the lessons that the challenges are intended to reach us.  When we face a challenge, we don’t show up as our best self, we don’t learn the lesson that is intended for us, ultimately we are missing an opportunity to connect deeper to our true purpose and move towards our miracles in life.

Love:

When we are in love, our thoughts, emotions, and actions are driven by truth.  The only truth is love; meaning hope, peace, kindness, gratitude, etc.  When we are thinking and responding in this loving manner, we are in direct connection to our source (God, the universe, etc.).  When we are in direct connection to our source, our actions directly reflect our best self and they pull us closer to the miracle that is our life’s purpose. When a challenge arises and we show up in love; we show up as our highest and best self and ready to address the challenge in an empowering way.  This often creates success to overcome the challenge, but even if we still fail, this mindset allows for the challenge to teach its lesson and for us to grow.

So we get to ultimately choose which way we want to think:  In Fear or in Love.  While the challenge or the situation often won’t be in our control, how we respond to the challenge is 100 percent up to us.

How can we choose love?

While it makes perfect sense, and logical, to choose love over fear, it is not always a simple decision.  There are so many factors that play into our ability to respond to difficult situations with love.  Utilizing the steps below, we can shift the way we face challenges and remove the fear and replace it with peace.

Next time you are faced with challenges; try this method.

Step 1: Awareness

The dictionary describe awareness as “Knowledge and understanding that something is happening or exists.”

This is exactly what we are going to do.   We are going to acknowledge and understand that there is a challenge happening, but we are going to dive deeper into our awareness.  We are not only going to acknowledge that a challenge is happening, we need to have the awareness that a challenge is happening and that it has a purpose.   This simple shift can be absolutely massively empowering.

Next time you are faced with a challenge do this:

• Take a deep breathe
• Tell yourself an empowering statement to bring awareness “This challenge is happening for a reason.”

Step 2: Clarity

The definition of clarity: the quality or state of being clear. 

Once again, this is exactly what we need to do.  We need to gain clarity on what is happening, why it is happening, and what the potential lesson might be.  We also need to gain clarity about how we want to show up.  What thoughts and emotions do I need to bring to the tale to ensure I overcome. When we gain clarity on the situation and how we want to show up, we often gain clarity on what we need to do about it (step 3).

Next time you are faced with a challenge and you have become aware that it is for a purpose, try this:

• Execute on a clarity exercise like meditation, reflection, visualization, or write in a journal.
• During the above exercise ask yourself questions: “Why is this happening?”  “What can I learn from this situation?” “How do I want to show up?” etc.
• Make a proclamation to the universe. For example:   “I am struggling with this challenge, but I am going to show up with confidence and hope.”

**side note:  We might not always gain clarity on what the purpose for the challenge is.  There have been many times in my life that the reason for a challenge has not presented itself for years and years, requiring faith that at some point we will either learn the lesson or it will no longer be relevant.  At this point, our clarity needs to be based on Faith.

Step 3: Take Action

In the words of an inspirational friend “Just do the damn thing, ”  thank you Mike Dunn.  In the end of the day we have our thoughts and we have our emotions, but progress forward through life and our own development is going to be measured by the actions we take.  This is why it is so important that we shift our perspective, we think thoughts that empower, we feel emotions that are of our best self, and we take actions that make a difference.

Next time you have a challenge in front of you and you are aware and have clarity, try this:

• Create a list of the 5 steps you can take to overcome this challenge.
• Create a list of the people in your life that you can utilize as support.
• Identify a time when you overcame a challenge “What did you do that made you successful?  Can you do something similar this time.
• The last thing and the most important:  Take action and do!

Watch the vlog video on how to view challenges with peace:

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8X1UKGIPNw[/embedyt]