Episode 2: Our Circumstances Do Not Define Us

So let’s jump right into our topic for today which is the school of thought that the circumstances of our lives do not define us. What do I even mean by a circumstance - This is important to get straight because you will hear me refer to circumstances frequently. When I say circumstance - I am always referring to the facts of your life. Circumstances are the events around us- the exact words people say to us - the things people do around us or towards us -the state of the world around us - the things in our worlds - are you catching my drift? The closer we get to having a circumstance - be a statement of fact - without adjectives attached to it - the better we will be at detaching ourselves from the circumstances we experience. We start shifting out of circumstance and into the world of thought when we notice adjectives and emotions floating around our telling of an event or circumstance around us. The fact is that we are all born into a specific set of circumstances. Many are more favorable than others - but all have negatives and positives- The most inspirational stories are those who were able to rise from difficult circumstances and do something unexpected or out of the ordinary for their set of circumstances.. The story of Helen Keller comes to mind - A virus took her sight and her hearing from her at 18 months old - her story of overcoming and that of her teacher Anne Sullivan to persevere even when the outcome seems distant is a perfect example of overcoming difficult circumstances - Did you see the movie of Madame CJ Walker on Netflix called self made ? Wow that’s a great story! She is recorded as the first female self made millionaire in the guinness book of world records - Born a black girl in 1867 in Louisiana - orphaned at age 10- started working as a child - and made it through a world where women had few rights and opportunities for money - and a black woman in the south on top of that! Well before the civil rights movement - Every circumstance she had looks like a dead end on paper - but she did not let those circumstances define her and she kept at it and produced extraordinary results- I spent a decade of my life reading about the horrors of WWII- i even arranged to travel to Germany when i was 20 and visited the Dachau concentration camp - - I couldn’t believe the things they went through - I tried to wrap my brain around how the German people were led down the path of behavior that created the horrors. There are thousands of stories of ordinary, courageous people stepping up to save lives while endangering their own - The world was trapped in a giant unfavorable circumstance but people kept pushing past their human limits and frailties to come out the other side. When I read the book “ man’s search for meaning” by Viktor Frankl - which he wrote 9 days after being released from a concentration camp -by the way - - I started to have insight into why I was so attracted to all of the WW II stories- I was trying to understand how people made it through - Viktor spent three years in four different concentration camps - one of them being Aushwitz where his mother and brother were murdered - while imprisoned he noticed that the people who focused on all that they lost and all that they didn’t have died - faster - He also noted that those who remembered that their humanity could not be taken from them even when everything else was - had a better chance of surviving - they chose to still help others, even when it increased their chances of punishment/death. They chose to share - to speak kind words - to watch out for each other - to remember the beautiful things from their past lives - and to have faith in a higher power - In short - they chose - to not be defined by their circumstances - This is the most appalling circumstance I can remember - yet out of it came people who chose to double down on their humanity - their beliefs in goodness and the control that they did have - Listen to these quotes from him - Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose.” ― Victor Frankl he one thing you can’t take away from me is the way I choose to respond to what you do to me. The last of one’s freedoms is to choose one’s attitude in any given circumstance.” ― Viktor E. Frankl Forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess except one thing, your freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation.” ― Victor Frankl The freedom to choose how you will respond to any of your life’s situations is the place that you have control - The control to choose one’s attitude in any given circumstance is the one thing everybody on this earth has and nobody can take it - And in the space of creating a life that we love - the very first and most important thing we can do is to start to separate our circumstances from the results of our lives- The more we believe that the things we don’t want or don’t like about our lives are controlled by our circumstances ( people places and things outside of us ) The less power we have - and the more trapped and stuck we feel - But when you start to wake up and see that no matter what the circumstance is - you are still the acting free agent that gets to choose what you will do about it. The more time we spend focusing on what we don’t like about things and how sad it is that those things are in our lives - the less energy and power we have to actually do something about it - We lose our ability to choose - because we forget that there is ALWAYS a choice - In this podcast space - I will be coming weekly to help you find more power in your life - by reminding you that your circumstances do not define you - Listen to what they post in the museum at dachau : In the museum at Dachau it says - Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it," George Santana Let’s comb through the past looking for those who chose to not be defined by their circumstances - who overcame - let’s not repeat the mistakes of the past - let’s choose to learn from the successes of the past - You won’t have to look far - most likely your own mother and father had to overcome circumstances that were not favorable- for sure your grandparents and their parents did to - The teacher with a smile on her face greeting your small child as they walk into school tomorrow morning - probably had to get through some of her own stuff just to be there that day - You most likely have circumstances that have made it difficult to do the things you want to do and be the person you want to be in this day or in this lifetime - Hear me now - You have a choice - choose today to identify the things that you wish were different in your life - and decide today to stop focusing your energy on how sad it is that these things are in your life- and ask yourself the golden question - Ok - so what am I going to do about that today? This one question will give your amazingly wise and brilliant brain the opportunity to start showing you the path forward - Join me in getting curious about all of this - and come back next week - to find out how your thoughts about your circumstances are the key to making the changes you are yearning for and how they are directly related to how you feel on a daily basis - If you will ask yourself my golden question from today each day this week what am I going to do about that today? - I will make a promise to you that you will find more power in your life than you did yesterday - And I don’t know about you - but when I feel powerful - I like my life more than when I don’t. You might be able to join me and notice that you like your life better than you did the day before. And that my friend, is how you are going to take a step towards loving your life - because after all - it’s a pretty good one - it just needs a little attention.