A friend of mine slipped on some ice and broke her ankle, on Christmas day. She told me that the first thing she thought was 'Now what is this going to teach me?'
I keep thinking about that. It keeps echoing in my mind.
And I'm finding that it's a really good way to look at life. Not just because it puts a positive spin on misfortune (we all know we're suppose to do that already) but because it allows me, a person who wears her heart on her sleeve, to pay attention to my evolution as a human being while not wanting to burry my head at every misstep.
It's the missteps, while maneuvering on ice, while trying to figure out how to be better, smarter, stronger, braver, bolder, kinder... the missteps that we think of only as blunders and setbacks... that really are part of the lessons learned.
It's painful to me, for example, to realize I've lost friends because I didn't know how to be a friend... that in trying to figure it out, I made apparently unforgivable mistakes. When I'm able to ask myself, however, "What is this going to teach me?" I become a participant in my own education, instead of wounded, frustrated, angry, and sad.
There is freedom in that, I feel. At the very least there is hope for movement.
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