BREAK FREE

NEXT TIME YOU FEEL LIKE YOUR LIFE IS COLLAPSING AROUND YOU, TAKE A STEP BACK AND WELCOME THE CHANGES...

Whenever you think you are going through the most difficult time of your life, stop and think. This may be just the experience you need to snap you out of your complacency and breathe life back into your soulless existence, break an ongoing cycle of failure or somehow be the catalyst which pushes you towards a brighter future.

In hindsight the worst situations either make or break us as individuals. However, in the long run it always seems to lean towards the former of the two - it not only makes us stronger people but also makes us far more compassionate. Next time you feel like your life is collapsing around you, ask yourself why and then take a step back and welcome the changes that have been put in place to save your sorry excuse for a life. And you will then understand that only real insight is born out of trauma.

There is an ancient Chinese proverb - "May you live in interesting times." This is supposedly seen as an extremely wicked curse, when actually it represents the complete opposite. The idea is that as humans we all naturally resonate to a humdrum life of routine habits, which pacify our soul or sole existence. Deep within us all, there is a desire to feel alive again, buzzing with premature anticipation that one day we will be able to touch the part of us that has somehow been pushed to the background. Unfortunately although at first these magnificent temptations seem too good to be true and almost impossible to resist, most times they are tests sent to us in disguise to wake us up from our pointless, monotonous and unpurposeful slumber. As we walk through life with our eyes wide shut.

Whilst the experiences in themselves reveal the true value of the test at hand fairly quickly, the side effects can send our stress levels soaring higher than a bird in flight; thrusting us into a rude awakening, as our feathers are scorched by the suns beautiful yet hypnotic rays of warmth and colour.

Opening up a new chapter can often mean closing a previous one, and sometimes this feels as if we have just opened up Pandora's box. It hurts, it always does and it always will. Most times during these periods it is found that we are completely unequipped to cope. Due to this we dig deep down to the core of our being in which to bring forth some of our rawest instinct and courage, in order to adapt, if we are not to be ripped apart.

Life has a peculiar way of making people shed their skin, even when all appears to seem quite contented. By continually living a life that is always warm and fuzzy, we become dull, lifeless and unsympathetic to the sorrows of others and certainly detached from them. It is in this state of unconsciousness that we dissolve our purpose for living; to the point that we simply end up not caring anymore - after all life is good to us and when was it exactly when we just stopped caring?

My attitude towards change, whether bad, but more specifically when it is good, is that it disturbs our present comfort zone. This then creates anxiety because it represents having to face up to times of complete uncertainty. I often wonder where the thoughts originally come from when we have them and as to the real reason why. These are self-motivated desires that urge us strongly to follow these feelings through because they are too strong to ignore. The other type of situations that are out of our control are such things as health issues and family problems. All examples have probably been set in place to make us ask ourselves if we are really happy with our lives, or just clinging onto a delusional safety net.

So with all this in mind it is usually through those things that seem to be negative by comparison, where we are really able to find true contentment, inspirations, hidden talents and new found skills and abilities - even if it means having to start all over again from scratch. By breaking free from the chains we have wrapped around us so tightly, we indeed experience far more interesting times for which, in turn makes us far more interesting people. It is during these supposedly absolute dire catastrophe's that we not only learn to survive our trips to hell and back, but find out who we really are in the process. And that we never really needed to reach out to the warmth of the sun's rays for it was locked up inside us all along.

OK, so we need a little friction to upset the apple cart occasionally, if we are going to question anything at all in life. If you can see past all the blood, sweat and tears you will realize that you have changed in some way, sometimes for the worse but most times for the better. Every time you learn the hard way you really move one step forward towards evolution.