Recently like many around the world, I found myself watching the devastating forest fires raging in Australia. The incredible amount of damage that has been caused is almost unbelievable. Wildlife, livelyhoods, homes, vinyards…nothing could escape the destructive force of nature that occurred.
I then also think of the tremendous upswelling of support and resilience that has been shown by the people affected. It has been nothing less than the best of the human spirit in action.
In made me think of how we all experience disasters and devastation in our lives. Whether it be losing a job, an unexpected diagnoses or losing a loved one, the fact of the human condition cannot be denied. Loss is a part of the game.
There is one mindset, though, that takes one out of the victim position and into powerful action in order to change the situation to your benefit.
We have all heard the phrase “everything happens for a reason” well the Stoic philosophers called this “Amor Fati” in Latin: “the love of one´s fate”. The understanding that when you see every occurrence in your life (including the greatest suffering and loss) as something good or necessary, you are in a much better place psychologically.
This can be extremely hard to see (especially when in the most difficult moments in your life) but if you can allow yourself to wonder about what’s good in the situation that you haven’t seen yet, you can find the ray of hope shining even in the deepest darkness.
The key to this is acceptance and non-resistance. What you resist persists, psychologically speaking. There is nothing you can control about what is out of your immediate ability to positively influence, yet there are many positive things that you can do to exert your influence over any given situation. Many more than then you probably can see right now. If you do those things, your situation will improve.
This is why it’s important to take time to relax the mind. Give yourself inner space to process the emotions that are running through your body. When the nervous system relaxes and the mind clears, a person is much more capable of finding the solutions to their problems. This is one reason why hypnosis and especially self-hypnosis is so powerful.
Forests take time to regenerate. But forest fires also create openings and space for new things to grow and they might even be necessary for the longterm health of the ecosystem.
That doesn’t mean the fallout isn’t bad, but it´s also not completely awful or terrible. There is always something positive to be taken from any situation, it just takes the right mindset to find it.
