– – Quick question for you today? Are you an optimist or a pessimist? Do you wake up in the morning and say, I love getting up in the morning, I clap my hands and say, today is going to be a great day! Just like Dicky Fox in one of my favourite movies, Jerry Maguire? Or are you more of a pessimist? Do you wake up and struggle to get up in the morning and have a whole list of reasons as to why things can’t go your way, or things will never go your way. Well, I think it’s all about perspective and the meaning that we give to the events in your life. And today I’m going to share a technique with you that you can use to change the meaning and change the perspective of the events in your life. It’s a technique that can bring more joy, more vitality, more fun into your life, even if you’re a pessimist! It’s not for everyone. Some people are going to find it a little bit too confronting, a little bit too challenging. But, are you up for it? Hi, I’m Kristen Myers, and I’m the founder of Next Level Coach Co where we help professionals and entrepreneurs, who are looking to get to that next level in life, whether that’s earning more money, finding more energy in their lives, more fulfilment, more vitality. We help them get there by breaking through their unconscious limiting beliefs and negative attitudes that hold them back so they can live their best, most fulfilling and joyful lives. When I was a young boy, about seven or eight years old, my parents used to drop me off at before and after school care. Cause school went from nine to three or something like that, but my parents worked long hours, they were both high achievers. And we lived a bit of a distance from the school. As a result, they dropped us off at this place in the morning at like 7.30 or eight and they’d pick us up in the evening at like 5.30 or six. But it meant that my parents weren’t around much and I had to go to this place that I didn’t really enjoy that much. I mean yeah I had some friends there, but it wasn’t the place that I wanted to be. All of my good friends from school, their parents would drop them off at school and pick them up in the afternoon. So they’d always have friends coming over and they’d be doing exciting things, spending time with the family, eating the food that they wanted to eat. And it was great. And I thought well, my parents drop me off at this place I don’t really want to go to. So what does that mean? It must mean that they don’t love me. That I’m not good enough for them, that work is more important. I told myself, my unconscious mind had told myself, at that age, that my parents didn’t love me. And I believed that. Now I know that’s not much of a problem compared to many kids. Like many kids either don’t have parents, or they don’t have good role models, or they’ve suffered terrible abuse, whether it’s emotional or physical or other forms of abuse. But I did take a disempowering meaning from it. And it did affect me in many ways I didn’t realize until much later in my life. I took the meaning that I wasn’t good enough for my parents love. Now they never said anything to promote that or for me to believe that, but it’s still the meaning that I took from the events. When you’re in a problem, and you take on a problem like that, all you can see is the problem. It’s a little bit like being in a problem. When you’re inside a problem, living in a problem situation the only thing you can see is the problem itself. It’s like your head is stuck in a bucket. It doesn’t matter how much of an optimist or pessimist I am right now the only thing I can see is the problem. My parents don’t love me. I’m not good enough for their love. Why is this happening to me? It’s not fair. Why is this such a big problem? Why do I have this big problem? No one else has this problem. My problem is much worse than everyone else’s. So why is this so important? Well, life’s too short to be stuck in negative emotions from the past. It’s too short to be stuck in anger or sadness, or fear, hurt, guilt, grief, any negative emotion. I mean, don’t get me wrong, those emotions do have a time and place and a purpose, but we don’t want to be hanging onto them excessively for long periods of time. They stop us from doing the things that we want to do. They hold us back, they limit us. So we want to honour those emotions, but get them out. Let them come at the right time, but then process them and release them. Imagine what it would feel like if you could let go, just like that, just like that, all of the anger, all of the sadness, all of the fear, all of the hurt, all of the guilt, all of the grief. All the stuff that’s stored up inside you. Maybe you don’t even realize it, but these things do get stored up inside us. Have you ever pushed an emotion down? I certainly have. So how do most people get out of the bucket? How do they get out of the problem? Well for many people, including myself, it comes with time. Time heals all wounds as they say. With age and experience and wisdom I started to see things from a different perspective. Have you ever had a problem and at that time, it was a big problem, but then with time or wisdom, or age and experience things started to change. Your perspective started to change? I bet you have right. And not only did the perspective change, but the meaning that you gave for those events changed as well. I started to realize that my parents were actually acting out of love for us. They were going to work, working hard so they could earn money, so they could provide for us, they could be role models, so they could create a future for us. I started to get it. But when you’re a little kid, that doesn’t make sense, you just absorb what’s happening and your unconscious mind creates an emotion around it. So with time and maturity, my perspective changed and the meaning changed. Ah, so my perspective changed and the meaning changed. Well, what if there was a way to change our perspective and change the meaning that we give to the events, quickly and easily. Skip all of the pain and suffering and just get the learnings. Because ultimately it’s the learnings that help us grow and the learnings that help us progress. It’s not holding onto the pain. The pain of the anger or the sadness or the guilt that protects us, it’s the positive learnings that we get, the learnings that help us grow and move forward. Well, there is a way, I’m going to teach it to you today, shortly. If you’re anything like me then you’re in a for a wild ride. I thought that I didn’t have any problems, no emotions. I was a pretty unemotional person. But it turns out that I buried a lot of stuff deep down. I didn’t even know that those emotions were there. And I thought, oh, when I do this process I’m not going to find anything and I’ll move on. But for me, it created a huge change. I had all these things that were really suppressed and when they came out and came through it gave me so much more energy, so much more vitality. I felt like a different person like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders. And I want to give that to you now, today, as well. So we need a way to see from outside the bucket. We need a way to see from outside the bucket when we’re still inside the bucket. We need that other person’s perspective. That other perspective. And we want to do that quickly, avoid the pain and the difficult times and the suffering. Maybe if you see the problem from another perspective you might find that it’s no longer a problem. What was a problem perhaps will no longer be a problem? Now I’m aware that there are terrible things that happen to people in life. Terrible things that we can’t imagine, don’t want to imagine. Things that are unjust, unfair and just horrible. Now I’m not naïve enough to think that doing this technique I’m about to teach you is going to solve any problem there on the spot. But what I do know is that, from incredible pain, comes incredible strength and incredible opportunity. And if you are able to get out of the problem and change the perspective then you can create a whole new meaning for the events of your life. And if you find the positive learnings in those problems you can move forward with your life and take charge of your life. Create a new life. That might be hard to swallow and to take for people who’ve been through terrible situations. But I honestly and genuinely believe that all problems have a purpose and that purpose is to push us beyond our boundaries that make us grow. And if you can find the gift in the problem that’s going to set you up for an incredible life. People do ask me, well Kristen, what is the meaning of death? My best friend just died or my family member just died. What’s the meaning in that? And I say, well the answer to that is, without death, we wouldn’t value life. It’s true right. Let me ask you about your particular problem. Without that problem that you’ve experienced in your life in the past, what would you never have learned? What would you never have done? What would you never have achieved? Okay, let’s get into the technique I promised. Here’s the technique, that might just change your life if you’re open to it and you embrace it. Here we go… [3-minute mindfulness and reflection exercise – listen to the audio] So how was that? What happened when you shifted the perspective? Did you learn anything new? What happened to the meaning of the problem? If you can adopt the belief that life happens for us and not to us. That life happens for us so that we can learn and grow and not to us so that we’re always a victim and powerless. Then you can take charge of your life, you can take charge of your destiny and live a new, amazing life. You can be in control of how you feel, and not anyone else. Only you can control you, and not anyone else. We can change the meaning of the events that happen in our life. It’s not the events that happen to us that define us it’s the decisions that we make about what they mean. And you can decide right now, or go back and do this technique again and change the meaning of the events that have happened in your life. Create a positive, empowering meaning so that it will serve you, so that you can move forward with life, you can move upwards and move upwards to your next level in life. Whether that’s earning more money, finding more joy, finding more vitality, finding more balance in life, you can do it. Let me know how you went today. I love to hear your feedback. Did this change anything for you? Do you have any new perspective, any new insight? I’d love to hear your feedback, let me know by commenting below the video. That’s all for today, I hope you’ve enjoyed this video. As always, inspire yourself and inspire others. Cheers.