Turning Life's Troubles into Triumphs

In living life as art one must look at everything that happens as part of that art. Think about it, when you go see a great movie or read a terrific book the plot of the story always has some conflict in it, some problem that the main character has to solve, has to deal with, has to come to terms with. It's not all sunshine and flowers or moonshine and romance - something has to happen, and that something has to be a challenge to the hero of the story or the story is, well, dull and boring.

So this week I'd like to ask each of you to think about whatever negative thing that is going on in your life right now as a potential triumph. It might not feel that way at the moment but if you just do as Wayne Dyer says and change the way you look at things so the things you look at can change you’ll be surprised at the outcome, I guarantee it. So let's start with the current financial crisis on Wall Street. Some of you may be worried about this.

I have a friend whose daughter and her husband and their three children recently sold their house and put an offer on another one - then because the children needed to start school in their new neighborhood they made the decision to move out prior to the closing on the house they owned. They moved in with her father, who happened to live in the same neighborhood as the new house while they waited for the paperwork on this new house to be processed. But then the unthinkable happened - the people who had "bought" their house failed to meet the standards of the mortgage company even though my friend's daughter and her husband had been assured they had met all the requirements and were fully pre-qualified.

Of course what this meant was that they had to put their house back on the market, forfeit the house they were going to buy and live with Granddad for a few more weeks - months as it turned out - that was in July and it is now the first part of October - no buyer in sight and the country in a credit and mortgage crisis. It now looks as if they will have to move back into their old house and stay there at least through the winter months - even in a good market the dead of winter is not a good time to sell a house.

This could put a sour taste in one’s mouth. But in this case it did not, at least not after a few weeks of making an effort to change the way they were looking at this so the thing could change for them. They began to ask themselves how can we turn this into a triumph?

The first thing this young woman began thinking about was how much money they would be saving if they moved back to the old house - the payment was about half of what the new one would have been. The second thing is her youngest child went off to kindergarten and she began to notice how bored she was on her own and how much free time she had without the kids there all day. She had been a stay at home mom up to this point and had devoted herself to her kids, her husband and her home. But now she could see the light at the end of the tunnel and something began to beckon her from the other end. A new thought began to emerge.

Maybe with the savings on the house payment and the free time she now had, maybe it was time for her to go back to school and get a teaching certificate. The old school even had all day kindergarten and so she could go to school and be home with the kids when they got home. By the time she got her master's the economy would probably have rebounded and plus she could get a job – a job in a school and be on the same schedule as her kids. Maybe things happen for a reason she started thinking. So they moved back into the old house and she will begin her master’s program in January. The kids are happy, they loved the old neighborhood anyway, the husband is happy, he wasn’t thrilled about the higher monthly payments and Mom is really happy too. As Dr. Phil always says, “if Mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.” So this spot of trouble, which at first looked like nothing but frustration and disappointment, has turned out to be the best thing possible for all concerned. Not only that, but they all got to live in the new neighborhood and found that in reality it wasn't any better in any substantial way than the old one.

What about you? Can you think of something in your life that you could turn from a problem to a possibility, from a pain to a pleasure, from a worry to a wonderful new idea, from a loss to a lesson in love or growth? Think about it and I bet you can, if you just take a different approach, look at it from a different angle and turn that old bugaboo of a problem into a beauty of a triumph.
Blessings, Lorraine