That shouldn’t have happened.
How many times have you thought this, in life?
Well….I’ve had it run through my head a gazillion times from the peanut gallery in my mind.
Boy, that really would have been better if it hadn’t happened….
…..what do you think, Peanut Gallery Committee Member B?
Oh, I agree 100%! And how about you, Committee Members C, D, and E?
Absolutely! That shouldn’t have happened! We all agree!
Just look at all the alternative possibilities that are available instead, if THAT hadn’t happened!
But…..what if instead of seeing how clearly something would be better if it hadn’t gone the way it did….
….instead, you found the benefits of the event or circumstance or situation going exactly as it went.
This is what is sometimes called the “living turnaround” in Byron Katie’s work.
I find advantages to what happened, instead of focusing on the disadvantage, concerns, fears.
It’s not positive thinking, or a type of orientation that tries to pretend something didn’t happen at ALL, or cover over the original painful thought. It’s not denial, looking on the bright side, putting a smile on a terrible situation, blah blah.
This is being open to a genuine, authentic openness to benefits coming out of the most troubling situations.
“The sense that things should be other than they are, is suffering.” ~ Wayne Liquorman
Yesterday in Summer Camp, a group of inquirers joining teleconference calls to question their beliefs together as a practice during the summer, looked at this very stressful concept where we really think something should NOT have gone the way it did.
Ouch. Agony.
When thinking that belief to be true, that something shouldn’t be as it is (or was) inquirers in the Summer Camp call reported feeling churning in the stomach, a sharp pain in the throat, jabs in the ribs, anger, rage, wanting to quit, hopelessness.
No hope. What’s the use?
But to truly consider who you would be without the conviction that something should have gone differently?
And then to even find the advantages that it should have gone as it did?
Quite a mind-blower.
This is what people discovered: It should have gone that way because…
…it gives me great opportunity to understand my own pain, my own difficult past and history, to feel better, to notice how I did the best I could (and so did everyone else), to loosen my grip on the need to control or manage things, to allow everything to be as it was, as it is, to let go completely.
“The I-know mind is very painful. It tries to run things like a dictator, and life goes on without it. And all sadness is a tantrum. It’s the war with God, the war with reality–all sadness. And you lose. So turn it around.” ~ Byron Katie
It should have gone that way, because I would never be here right now, writing this, sitting here, living in this particular moment if it hadn’t.
Even with all the Committee Members chiming in.
Much love, Grace