“Circumstances are beyond human control, but our conduct is in our own power. ”
― Benjamin Disraeli
I am not waiting with joy. I am waiting for this move to just be over. I’ve been feeling oppressed, anxious, discontent and just generally grumpy. Distracted is a good description, too. There are so many things that are out of my control and unknown that I am trying to fix and can’t. I know better than that, so why am I doing this? My mentor, Paul, says to stay in the question and the answer will show up. Fine.
That was what I wrote in my journal last week…then one night I was listening to a recording on The Effect of Thought on Circumstance from the book “As a Man Thinketh.” The gist of this chapter is that man’s mind is like a garden which can be intelligently cultivated or allowed to run wild. Depending on the seeds planted there, positive or negative, those seeds will bear fruit after their kind. Circumstances come into our lives to cause us to grow. When we learn the lesson from a particular situation, it passes away and gives place to other circumstances.
BUT…if we let the mental weeds take over and flunk the lesson, we get to take it over again until we get it. (Big smile here.) Instead of twenty years experience, we have one year of experience repeated ten or twenty times.
This is what I realized about my circumstances–I was fighting them. That’s hilarious because the conditions that were driving me nuts were the unknowns. That’s like sparring with an invisible man! How effective is that?
So…I stayed in the question and the answer showed up. It was time to pull the weeds and plant better seeds. I reminded myself how blessed we are to have found this perfect home. We are beginning a new and exciting chapter in our lives and I needed to view this with joy and anticipation. I decided to stop kicking against my circumstances and use them instead as aids to more rapid progress in personal growth and as a means of discovery of the in the hidden powers and possibilities within me. That feels so much better. My situation has not changed, but I have, and because of that, my circumstance is positive
“When we change the way we look at things,
the things we look at change.” Wayne Dyer
What situation or circumstance has you baffled? What invisible man are you fighting? How many times do you want to study that same lesson?
We have the power to choose our own thoughts and because of that, we can shape our circumstances to become opportunities and times for growth.
Still learning…obviously,
Jan
Jan McDonald
The John Maxwell Team
jan@jan-mcdonald.com
PS You can get my book, “Fruitful Leadership; Leading by The Fruit of The Spirit” on Amazon
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