Day 79- Expectations vs. Reality - Why does life seem so unfair sometimes?
📖Daily Reading
Job 3-29
🎥 Video
Join me on my morning walk as we rise and shine together by walking through the Bible daily and learn a practical applicable coaching nugget from the ultimate life coach - our creator (whatever that means to you). No judgement zone here, all are welcome, we are all on a spiritual journey because we are after all spiritual beings having a human experience.
📝 Reflection
Job 29:18
“I thought, ‘Surely I will die surrounded by my family after a long, good life…’
With the conversation going back and forth between Job and his friends it is obvious that they have an expectation of how life ‘should be’ if you play be the ‘rules’. Being blessed, rewarded and well regarded for good behavior. Life is a transactional exchange of cause and effect. As I was reading I was getting the feeling that Job understands this to an extent, easy come easy go and God is still God, but there is still a bit of struggle with trying to find the meaning in it all and how he might have somehow been responsible, but he knows he is not. His friends are making it harder for him, not helping and they are not so easily convinced, they see it more as an ‘obvious’ fact. Job you must have done something wrong, even if you don’t think you did, you obviously did otherwise you would not be in this position.
In the past decade or so I have done a lot of work personally on my thought life. Trying to understand and exercise my free will in this area, I have the right to think whatever I want and I am also trying to grant others this freedom as well 😉. I really do have a choice about my thoughts and beliefs. Many of us go our whole lives with out realizing this and even when they are told they refuse to believe it. Instead they live at the affect of their thoughts and victims of their own minds and circumstances. The thoughts I choose determine the quality of my life and my experience and my relationship with God, myself and others and with life itself. If this concept is new to you, I know it might not ‘feel’ true, but have an open mind and heart. Also important to reiterate is that just because something is true, does not mean it is easy. Our brains, thoughts and emotions are complex and often don’t feel controllable.
I am going to refer to a couple of my mentors (authors and coaches that I read and follow, I know them personally but they don’t know me 😉) as I discuss this; Byron Katie, Viktor Frankl, Edith Eger, Henry Cloud there are many more, but these are just a few that have helped me understand my choice in my thoughts and how they effect how I experience life. Byron Katie is often quoted as saying “Insanity is arguing with reality. I realized it is insane to oppose it. When I argue with reality I lose- but only 100% of the time”. Upon entering the concentration camp and his wife dying in the gas chambers Viktor Frankl took off his wedding ring and made a decision to accept reality in order to survive. This doesn’t mean he denied loving her and was not sad, but he had to radically accept that life is unpredictable and to stay in reality. These are just a couple of examples.
Right now I am reading a book called Integrity by Henry Cloud, he defines integrity as ‘the courage to meet the demands of reality’. Integrity is the word used in the stories of Job to describe how God felt about Job. When we have or hold onto expectations of how life ‘should be’ or was and it doesn’t line up with our current reality, we create our own suffering. This is not the same thing as true physical suffering that is out of our control. But even in how we experience physical pain we have a choice to some degree. For example; when you start a new exercise routine it can create an after effect of sore muscles maybe even pretty acute pain for a day or two and yet, many of us learn to embrace this pain and even enjoy it. We see it as a positive experience and measure of our hard work toward being healthier and fitter. On the flip side some don’t think of this pain during or after exercise that way and maybe end up having a yo-yo relationship with exercise because they can’t get to this positive relationship with the pain and hard work of exercise. The point here is demonstrate that there is a choice. We can put 2 people through a rigorous workout and have 2 different perceptions and relationships with their pain, one positive one negative and complaining. One is happy and the other suffering, both with sore muscles but you can see how suffering because of the pain is a choice. I hope this is making sense. This is a topic that people have written books on and continue too, maybe I will too one day. Our minds are so fascinating and we are only beginning to understand. I don’t think it is unknown by God though, he reminds us throughout the Bible ‘renew your mind’. He has been trying to tell us this from the beginning! We should listen.
I am still very much a work in progress, I have been working on my own thought life and relationship with life for years and feel like I am still just a beginner, taking one step, wobbling and falling down, then going sideways off a cliff. Watching Job go through the process of accepting reality and interacting with his friends as they deal with their own expectations of life and vs. accepting reality and trying to make sense of it all is so poignant and complicated. Realizing that life isn’t a tit-for-tat exchange of I did this good thing and now I get a blessing, or I did something bad and now I get a curse. But yet they keep trying to fit a square peg into a round whole and it is only leading to more frustration. What if we stopped and realized we had a choice in our thoughts? What might change for you? Are you willing to be curious and be a beginner and open to living life on life’s terms?
I love Byron Katie, in particular, because she not only is a brilliant teacher, but she developed a process called ‘The Work’ which anyone can do. It is so practical, anyone can do it and it is life changing. Can you get curious start questioning your thoughts? What if you didn’t have a story or expectations, who would you be? Next time you are struggling with an emotion or thought what if you started with a question “Is it true?” , then you asked yourself “how is this thought making me feel?’, ‘how would I feel or who would I be without this thought?’. She calls this process ‘inquiry’ or ‘the work’. To learn more and see examples go to thework.com.
✍🏼Daily Journal Prompt
Can you get curious start questioning your thoughts? What if you didn’t have a story or expectations, who would you be? Next time you are struggling with an emotion or thought what if you started with a question “Is it true?” , then you asked yourself “how is this thought making me feel?’, ‘how would I feel or who would I be without this thought?’.
📖Tomorrows Reading
Job 30-33
Coaching Opportunity
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