How to Deal With Life's Challenges? Revisit the Context!

For so many of us, life is a slog, as we deal, reactively, with one problem after another. That’s because we have fallen into a trap of humanity’s making. 

To break out of that trap, we need to find purpose, and that starts with an appreciation of the context to life — the incredible grand design of which each of us is an intricate part. 

Transcript

HOW TO DEAL WITH LIFE’S CHALLENGES? REVISIT THE CONTEXT

New Insights life coaches take a refreshingly different approach to most. They don’t set out to help their clients solve problems. They help their clients to find purpose, see opportunities and re-invent themselves.

It doesn’t take much to realise that most of us are trapped in survival mode, without being truly aware of it.

Ask someone, “What drives you?”

Chances are the answer will be something mundane, like:
“Earning enough to stay afloat,”
“Keeping my children fed and safe,”
“My next paycheck,”
“Being able to retire in comfort one day.”
“Providing for my family.”

Needing to cope

These are not ambitious goals, by any stretch. They are vague statements; expressions of the need to cope with what life may throw at us.

When you live reactively, life becomes defined by a series of problems to be overcome, rather than opportunities to express your purpose.

Ironically, it is we, as humans who have, wittingly or — in most cases — unwittingly, designed the trap.

The antidote to reactive living

New Insights life coaches are trained to understand that the antidote to reactive living and all the stress that goes with it, lies in finding one’s purpose, aligning your beliefs and values with that purpose and delivering on it by doing ‘work’ that you’re passionate about.

You can’t just leap from reactive living mode into what we call ‘conscious living’ mode. Reactive living mode results from many years of self-programming.

An old friend

But there’s a highly effective way to help bridge that gap. The solution lies in breaking the cycle, or routine, that keeps us trapped. And to help with that, we can turn to an old friend; a friend that’s always around but one that we mostly choose to tune out in our busy day-to-day existences.

That friend is Mother Nature.

Mother Nature provides the food for thought, or context that prompts us to reflect on the meaning of life and the purpose we are here to deliver on.

OK, pause for a moment, grab a coffee, tea, or your favourite drink before engaging your imagination.

Revisiting the Context for Life (or realising why it’s not worth sweating the small stuff)

You’ve taken some much-deserved time out to be alone, doing what you love, camping out in nature.

Your lengthy journey has taken you to a remote area, many miles from the nearest town. You’ve arrived at a picturesque spot on the banks of a shimmering river snaking its way through rolling hills.

You’ve pitched your tent and, after a long day travelling, you’re ready to turn in and get an early night … but first you decide to take advantage of the calm, warm evening. The lush grassy bank outside your tent looks inviting, so you lie down and take in the peace and beauty that nature has so generously offered up.

The sun slowly slides over the horizon, the shadows from distant mountains lengthen, and you watch in awe as the glorious vista changes in colour and tone. The rushing sound from the river grows in intensity as dusk descends.

You adjust your gaze upwards to the clear night sky. Stars appear, one by one at first, then in clusters, until a seemingly infinite array of little glinting dots pockmarks the darkness.

Your body sinks a little deeper into the green carpet beneath. You breathe deeply, slowly becoming aware of how it feels to be completely relaxed. You are overcome by excitement and awe as the realisation sinks in that you are an intricate part of an incredible grand design.

As you scan the heavens, you are reminded of all you have read about the jaw dropping features of our universe that are beginning to be revealed by advanced telescopes and modern technology.

Your mind boggles as it tries to contemplate what’s out there — billions of spiral galaxies, spanning mind-numbing distances, interspersed with incredible celestial bodies like light-eating black holes, stars a thousand times the diameter of our own enormous sun, quasars, magnetars, rogue planets … the list goes on and on.

You marvel at how everything in the cosmos is arranged in a cycle. Even birth and death — or is it birth and re-birth — occurs on a grand cosmic scale.

You try to fathom the unfathomable …

What could exist beyond a universe that is itself unimaginably vast and mysterious?

Your imagination is strained to its very limit.

Sensing this, you contract your focus, gradually returning your thoughts to Mother Earth. You become engulfed in a feeling of great comfort as you reflect on the incredible beauty, variety and diversity that this tiny little pinprick in the universe — your home — has to offer.

Awareness of your physical body and its connection to the earth returns. You sense the warmth of the air around you and the sponginess of the grass beneath you.

The buzz of a mosquito breaks your trance-like state; the tiny creature instantly evoking in you a sense — not of irritation — but of wonder and realisation.

Everything in this universe, no matter how gargantuan or how microscopic, has a role to play …

… Everything has a specific and important purpose in this intricate grand design.