Imagine if the ability to experience contentment was always at your fingertips. What if there was some switch you could flick whenever you were stressed or worried or sad that would lighten the load and make things seem brighter? Actually, there is. It’s not a switch exactly, but it is the seeker and the creator of our balance, our peace of mind, our outlook on life. I call it our “reorganizer” because that’s exactly what it does—reorganizes.
I don’t want to minimize at all the torment and anguish that some people experience from time to time. In my own clinical practice, I’ve had the humbling privilege of meeting some of the most extraordinary people who have experienced unimaginable horribleness. Meeting these people, and learning from them, has contributed to my uncompromising optimism regarding the human spirit.
No matter how dark it gets, the machinery that makes us who we are will not falter from creating ways to get us back on track. Some of the ways it shows us might seem silly or impossible or even scary, but it’s like a never-ending catalog of ideas. It doesn’t scan the catalog first for the best ideas—it’s your job to select the one that will serve you best. For as long as things aren’t right, the ideas will keep coming. When things start to feel better, the endless parade of options will pause.
You’ve got everything you need to create all the contentment you want, but that still leaves the question: “What is contentment?” Well, contentment is nothing more than getting what you want. I’ve also heard it suggested that contentment can come from wanting what you get. For me, that idea seems too passive and places much more emphasis on the environment than is warranted. Sometimes what we get is rubbish and a long way from what we want.
While we can’t always control what gets dished up to us, we can control what we do next. That’s where the reorganizer comes in. In fact, it can even help just to know that you’ve got this little marvel in the back pocket of your mind. It’s your very own, individual light at the end of the tunnel. As crummy or as distressed as you might be feeling right now, just knowing that you’ll soon be getting a ceaseless cacophony of ideas to review can help. This reorganizer is the ultimate, inexhaustible ideas officer.
Not only will this stream of ideas be relentless until you find the one that’s right, but the stream can also come in a variety of ways. You might have thoughts, you might get images, you might hear words from your Granny or your tennis coach, you might just get a funny kind of feeling. However they come and whenever they come, they should be reviewed.
As much as I’m proclaiming the virtues of this invaluable and amazing little resource, there is one snag. Remember I mentioned up above that the reorganizer doesn’t do any scanning? The good part about this is that you get an uncensored view of all the possibilities you’re only just beginning to imagine. The downside is that you never know when the perfect solution will pop up. Sometimes it might appear quite quickly. In other situations, it can take much, much longer. But it will always come.
How can you help? How can you maximize the chance that it comes sooner rather than later, and how can you ensure that you’ll know it when it arrives? You have to be paying attention!
Sometimes, when people are not traveling the way they want, they declare war on themselves. They can berate and insult themselves and be nasty in all sorts of ways inside their minds. While this isn’t a nice way to treat anyone—least of all ourselves—the worst part is that it distracts your mind from the potential solutions that are coming your way. While you’re busy letting yourself know what a lousy piece of smelly toe jam you are, you’re not fully considering the range of possibilities that are wafting through in the background.
Any of these possibilities could be the answer you need, so this is where you need to focus. If it’s important to you, you can return to reminding yourself of your shortcomings once you’ve got the solution you need to get back on track. For now, your most important job, in terms of improving how you’re traveling, is to notice, and spend some time pondering, the goings-on in your consciousness. That apparently crazy idea that you just briefly noticed might actually be the solution you need.
At the moment, I’m in a bit of a dilemma about getting back into running regularly. This is definitely a first-world problem and not in the league of some of the difficulties people have to contend with, but it’s bothersome nonetheless. I’d like to be running a few times a week, but there are also lots of other things I want to do. Things like hanging out with the family at breakfast, writing articles for my blog, and meeting all the demands of my day job. I’ve been aware of lots of different possibilities occurring: run in the morning; run in the evening; just do a shorter run; hire a coach; and many more.
None of the ideas have stuck yet, but I have this unshakable feeling that I’ll be back pounding the pavement before too long. The funny thing is, I love it when I’m out there, jogging along, and I feel good when I get back. It’s just getting out of the house that has me stumped. As frustrating as this is, it is of some comfort to know that I’ll find a solution eventually. I’m even deliberately not forcing myself to get out the door. That would involve a mental arm-wrestle, which I’ve done before from time to time, but now I’m more interested in discovering what will happen if I just leave it to the reorganizer
We’re designed to be in balance. Sometimes the best thing we can do is get out of our own way and let the machinery we were born with be our guide about what to do next. Patiently, quietly, and optimistically observing all that is you working to create the solution that fits like a hand in a glove can often be the hardest part. If you can, somehow, maintain the faith, the destination that you create for yourself will be well worth the journey.
The question is, are you ready to give yourself permission to be all that you can be?
