Submitted by miololo on January 28, 2008 - 8:12am.

Notes From a
Modern Day Fairy Godmother
A column from Terre Thomas 

 Honoring Life... when it sucks.

We all have a lens through which we *see* our world and interpret our experiences.

There are two philosophies that I try to use as my lenses.  The first is that you choose and create your reality.  This tenet has most recently been made popular by the movie and the book The Secret.  It’s not really a secret; it’s truth has been around for a long, long time, but in this latest form it is a blessing because it has been introduced so many more people.

The second is that no matter what happens in your life, good or bad, you have the freedom to choose how to judge what’s happened and you can always choose to ultimately be at peace about anything.  Of course, there are the emotions that accompany experiences that aren’t so peaceful – joy and anguish and many in between.

So getting to *peace* really requires you to experience the emotions and then place the experience in a peaceful context.

Both of these practices are fine and good when lovely, happy things are happening in your life but when “bad things happen to good people”, that’s when it’s a challenge to choose the best lens.

For me, I’ve had more setbacks and sadness in the past year than I would care for.  Thinking about my first tenet – I create my own reality – I think, “Why would I do this to myself?”

I don’t think it’s because I’m not good at creating reality.   I’m actually quite skilled at making wishes come true for myself and with others.  So then, why would anyone *choose* painful experiences?

My less-than-tidy explanation (if you were hoping for an easy answer, you’re going to be disappointed) has to do with mystery and paradox.

I think difficult things happen because our precious lifetimes are supposed to be filled with all kinds of experiences and the hard ones are part of some Divine master plan (whether you understand it as karma, god’s will, or a cosmic-universe roll of the dice).  We cannot, from our current limited human point-of-view, always know why they happen to us.

Who hasn’t, in retrospect, had something “bad” happen that ultimately was a blessing.  And conversely, who hasn’t had, or seen, something awful happen that never made sense?  That’s the mystery – we often don’t understand it immediately and in some cases we never do.   In choosing the lifeline of *being at peace*, regardless of understanding it, you feel better and it better equips you for living well through the experience.

And then there’s paradox.  As I get older, I am coming to realize that there are many things in my life that are good and bad both.  And there are lots of things in my life that seem to contradict each other and I believe in both.  Can I be miserable and confused AND peaceful and full of faith? Yeah.

Most recently I got hit with a doozy, emotionally and physically it seemed to suck the life force right out of me.  My resiliency tank was low and the orange dashboard light was flashing.

For a while I tried talking myself out of how depleted I felt.  I counted my blessings – over and over again.  I prayed my (weak) prayers.  I ate a lot of comfort food and had more martinis than was wise.  I went to yoga (but didn’t go enough).  I gave myself pep talks and I cried quite a bit.  I sought guidance from my guidance tools and wise people.  And I tried to “create” a replacement, happy reality; it didn’t work.

Finally, I gave into it; I surrendered.  I quit fighting my discouragement and decided that I was just going to honor my life, in the way it was happening, and work to be in a peaceful place about it.  Trusting that it wouldn’t stay like this forever.

I’m also continuing to do the things that I know will heal, repair, and create more good things in my life but this lesson I’ve had – and am sharing* in this column – is that you gotta honor your life….even when it sucks.

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