425 I Can Weather Through Any Storm March 2018 Thursday Week 1

Thoughtful Thursdays-#425 March 1st The Strong Within Daily Affirmation Podcast

I Can Weather Through Any Storm

"The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm terrible, but they have never found these dangers sufficient reason for remaining ashore."
~Vincent Van Gogh

You are the architect of your life. You design your life; you build your walls, you build a solid structure or a weak structure. And while you create a blueprint to begin designing your life, there has to be an understanding that you are more than the structure you've built. You are more than the foundation within…you are also the storm created outside those walls as well. Meaning that the storms you go through are created by you.

Now the storm is metaphorical as it's not about real hurricanes, but it's about the hurricanes you create, it's about the drama you decide to reside within, it's about the stories you tell yourself and others about why your life is the way it is. Horrible things happen to us, people can be hateful to us, and the world may seem like it's against us…but that ultimately is still… a story we tell ourselves. And we can decide to live in a story of misery, sadness, doubt, hatred, self-pity of poor old me; or we can decide to live in a story where the lead character decides their fate. We can live in a story where the hero has conflict but always finds a way to win triumphantly. We can live in a story where we know that the ending has a twist that will marvel even ourselves when we decide to believe in something better.

Sure, people will claim I'm a happy dude and unrealistic about the world around me. I won't deny that I'm happy, but I'm not blind. I'm not disillusioned of the pains, the hatred, and the conflicts in this world. It's rather that I choose to see something more in all of it.

And I'm not always successful in doing that. There are mornings where I don't want to get up as I'd rather cover my body under the covers and hide in the security of that warm bed. There are conversations that I know I need to have with people about something that's bothering me, but I avoid it by take the easier way; thinking that if I don't address it then it will go away. And every day I'm confronted by my own internal storms, as I hope I can face them again with strength and confidence.

On those days, or those unsuccessful attempts to best fear, I've found the reason I let fear win is because I was afraid of losing. I have told myself the story that running from my fears is easier. I have told myself that the best way to save myself is to run from fears rather than run through my fears.

But the reason I was scared was that I believed the storm was out of my control instead of knowing it was caused by my focus. I may not have always been the starter of the storm, but in those times I've forgotten that I decide how I will stand in the storm.

In my early 20's I had a close friend and business partner take advantage of me and write me a lot of bad checks. I had a home business and he wanted to rent out an office and have a business location. I was hesitant but he said he would take care of the rent and all the furniture, etc. And so we found a place, rented it and started getting it office ready.

During this whole process, there was something tingling in my intuition telling me something was wrong when every time a check bounced and my friend said oh it must be in his other account. To make a long story short, he was printing checks on his home printer and passing them off as real. He eventually went to jail as he had done this to other people as well. And during this time I went more into debt because of this, as I was left with paying the bank back for the things that I thought were paid for.

The debt was so overwhelming, that I was in constant anxiety in how the hell I was ever going to pay it back, and I'd be in financial ruin. After a year of racking up even more debt trying to pay it little by little; I had reached my breaking point. And the only seemingly logical reason at the time was to hide because I didn't ever see myself getting out of this hole. It seemed easier just to run than to make small payments for the rest of my life. I was angry and upset that it was my responsibility to take care of it when "I" was the victim. And for years I avoided it, until one day I was tired of running and decided it was time to be an adult and face whatever I needed to do to resolve it.

That day I had decided to stop running I called the lady at the bank who had been handling my case from the beginning. I told her the story and that I wanted to take care of it no matter what, so I asked what would I need to do to make this right? And she said "let me check into all of this and I'll get back to you."

The next day she called me and told me that my ex-friend who had written all the bad checks was out of prison and that they could garner his wages. I didn't have to pay back anything.

Now the moral of the story isn't that I got out of having to pay for something, it was that I was willing to face the hell storm that I feared so much no matter what the cost would be.

Even if I had to pay back all of the debt by myself, I would've been happier because I was no longer running from a bigger storm that I'd created. Yes, there was the initial storm of not listening to my intuition and trusting my friend when my intuition was telling me something was off.

But for years during my running, I was playing the victim. I was so angry at this person for taking advantage of me. I kept telling myself that it wasn't my fault.

And it partly wasn't my fault. my friend duped me, but I didn't listen to that voice inside early on that was telling me something was wrong. I drowned it out with another voice saying, this is my friend he wouldn't take advantage of me. I didn't listen to myself when my intuition was screaming at me.

Immediately after the incident, I talked with my mentor mike about what happened. I was afraid that I couldn't trust anyone again. And I said to Mike, "I don't want to live my life not trusting people."

And Mike said to me, it's not about NOT trusting people it's about seeing what is. It's about looking at the situation and seeing the truth in it. And when we do that, it will help you to see the storms for what they are and not be saddened by them but to know there is something more in them. There is something more in you…and you can either be the addition to increasing and making the storm bigger, or you can be the standing force to go through it with confidence and poise knowing that the only storm that will kill you is the one you decide to make.

Today's Personal Commitment:

So what storms are you creating? What storms are you making bigger by thinking you have no control over the storm? What storms are you losing ground from by saying things like "it's not my fault, I am the victim here," or "there's nothing I can do about it." For me, the storms I got lost in were due to self-pity. Thinking it was unfair I had to go through pain and the work of something hard; when, in fact, it wasn't bad that I went through a storm…I made it worse by thinking the storm was meant to break me.

Every storm in your life is a resolve to ask yourself "will I be bigger than the storm, or will I consumed by the storm."

You are above any storm, and when you realize that…you won't have to run from the storm. And the more you stand firm in your storms, then the more you'll see that every storm you face won't be a tsunami of fear, but it will be a breath of hope…reminding you how strong you are…and how much you will become because of the storm.

The trick of life is not about avoiding your storms, but knowing you may be making them bigger by how you view your problems and how you associate blame to your problems. So what storms are you going through now that you could reassociate how you see it?

How would that change your life right now to see your storms differently?

I Can Weather Through Any Storm

Thanks for listening. I'm sending great energy your way as we become Strong Within together,
Personal Development Life Coach-
Chris O'Hearn

Contact info- email: chris@strongwithin.com phone:865-219-3247

Music by:
- Zest by basematic (c) copyright 2011 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license.
- I Have Often Told You Stories (guitar instrumental) by Ivan Chew (c) copyright 2013 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license.
Location: Knoxville, Tennessee USA but available worldwide