This being human is indeed an interesting journey.  We are offered so many opportunities for growth yet at that time they can seem like anything but.  Personally, the largest times of growth for me and that I have witnessed in my clients has come during and after very uncomfortable or downright difficult life situations.  I know from healing myself of several diseases that when I was able to find the beauty and blessings in my life amongst the chronic pain – my life began to shift and the pain started to subside.  It is a reminder I have to go to each and every time life presents another challenge.  We have no problem wallowing in something we feel is almost impossible to face but being in that energy will not bring about change or the solution.  It is in finding the beauty in your life right at this moment when perhaps you are in the middle of that challenge that can shift the energy so you can not only find your way out but be stronger for it.

When I say to find the blessings I don’t mean to ignore the challenge at hand.  Great wisdom and strength can come from processing the emotions you are experiencing while acknowledging what that challenge exactly is and what it means to you at this moment.  I am asking that you do take a break from that pain, worry or fear and look at the good things right now in your life.  The worry, pain and fear will keep you immobilized and will also keep you in the past comparing it to outcomes from before or projecting into the future overwhelmed in worry and your limited ideas of how the situation can turn out.  When you allow yourself that time to think about what you have learned so far from this situation, what this situation has allowed you and what else in your life is going right at this moment you bring yourself to the present moment and that is where the true miracles can occur.

An example from my life is when I was working on my own healing. I did not know I could heal myself as doctors said it was impossible and I would live a life in pain, wind up in a wheelchair, undergo intense physical therapy and be on pain pills for life.  If I had accepted that as truth there is not a doubt in my mind that would have become my reality.  Luckily I had not only the movie, “The Secret” but teachers such a Dr. Deepak Chopra and Dr. Wayne Dyer to teach me from their books just how powerful the mind was.  I began to give thanks to the situation, to my illness for giving me that time to lie down and relax. As a recovering perfectionist that was not something that came easy. I gave thanks to the fact that while I was in bed I could still read to my two children instead of concentrating on my past messages to myself about how I was not being a “good enough mother”.  I gave thanks that there were free materials online to learn from such a Wayne Dyer videos that inspired me.  I started giving thanks even to my body which had hurt for over six years for allowing me to still get up every morning and get dressed, take a shower and be involved in the lives of all of my loved ones. I gave thanks to the one little piece of me that didn’t hurt – sometimes it was only a little finger.  And you know what happened?  I began to heal and healed myself in three weeks of all my chronic illnesses, pain and dis-ease. If I had accepted my fate and wrapped all my energy into it – I can tell you I would be in that wheelchair now exactly as the doctors predicted.

We do influence our lives and every situation with our thoughts and emotions which translate into energy.  I know life can deal out challenges. I just got over a challenging week myself and I can tell you what pulled me out was this practice of gratitude. In my book, “A Short Path to Change: 30 Ways to Transform Your Life” I offer simple exercises to transmute fear and worry, to practice gratitude for yourself and others, to fall in love with yourself and many other tools to help you transform your greatest challenges into your biggest successes.  You can do this and make your life easier.  Change does not have to be hard.  Change does not have to take years.  Change can be as quick as you deciding things CAN change. Taking that first step with gratitude and presence is a sure way to bring that into reality!