What if it could be easy?

Recently, my wonderful husband and I were in Italy on a week-long bicycle trip.  We dreamed up vacations where we could travel through Europe and be active.  This was our third bicycle trip.  We’ve now bicycled through Croatia, France and Italy. We’re thinking our next trip may be in the Dolomites or the Greek Islands.

During our trip in Italy there was one day when we would be riding “the wall”.  There would be three hills one right after the other with at least a  12% grade.  12% grade on a bike is steep.  The third hill was the longest and steepest.  If you didn’t want to ride the wall you could get in the van or push your bike up the hill.  To me, these weren’t real options.  I wanted to climb “the wall.”

As I started to climb I kept telling myself that it was easy and I could do it.  Somewhere in my chanting to myself that it was easy and I could do it, I lost track of what hill I was climbing.  I thought I was on the second of the three hills.  I kept thinking  I still  had the hardest climb ahead of me and that I could climb one more hill.  When I got to the top of what I thought was the second hill,  I realized that had in fact been the third and final hill!  It was easy and I had already accomplished the big climb for the morning. 

I kept thinking the hardest part was till to come and so the hardest part didn’t seem so hard.    My perception made all the difference. 

The definition of perception is: “A way of regarding, understanding, or interpreting something; a mental impression.”

We have the ability to change our perception about anything at any time.  We can change how we think about something. This will change our relationship to the event and then our experience of it.

A few weeks after my only child died, I was sobbing saying this was the worst thing that could ever happen. A little voice in my head calmly said, “now is it?”.  This got my attention.  I stopped sobbing immediately and thought about this.   I thought of a few other things that could have been worse.  What if I had never had my son? It would’ve been worse to have never known him or have been a mother.   Realizing this was not the worse event I could experience changed how I looked at the loss of my son.  This new perception  helped me through a difficult time.

Where in your life would it help to change your perception?  Are you going through something that if you thought about it differently it would be easier?  When we make something “big”, by comparison, we are making ourselves “small”.  What if we stayed aware of the truth that we are connected to a power that is greater than anything we may be experiencing.  We remind ourselves that because of this connection we are “BIG” and that our challenge is “small”.   I know this isn’t always easy, but it’s worth practicing.

What’s one small shift in your perception you can make today?

Live your dream,

Cyn

P.S.  Would you like to learn more tools to help you create a life you’d love?  Let’s have a conversation about how I can support you.  Sign up for a complimentary Discovery Session.