881st Week: Adapting with “Attitude Adjustments”
I just returned from a week away for vacation. I was at an all-inclusive spa-type location, surrounded by the beauty of nature. On the third evening there, a powerful thunderstorm came through, some said bringing it with it a “small tornado”. The storm brought down three transformers in the area, so all the power flicked out in a moment and didn’t return for a bit over 24 hours.
The loss of power ended every imaginable kind of activity and the employees at the resort were really quite creative and focused in coping with the loss of power, especially around how they managed a kitchen that needed to feed three meals a day to a lot of people.
An immediate effect of the power outage was the dwindling power in every kind of gadget. Because of this, many of us searched for the few outlets that were connected to the generators and this led to a group of five of us hanging out in a room that had four connections wired into the floor. Sitting together for several hours, we discovered new friendships we wouldn’t have had time to create had the power not gone out.
All this got me to thinking about the powerful impact of the choices we make when faced with challenging or disappointing circumstances—although, admittedly, this was a challenge of privilege and not a challenge of survival or even of need. I started thinking about the importance of being willing to have an “attitude adjustment” when faced with unexpected developments, and that awareness demonstrated how our attitudes generate the filter through which we experience and interpret our world and our experience.
And so, for this week’s practice, I invite you to track the attitude you bring to the experiences and conditions you meet along the way. Even when you start out with a negative sense of something, play with what happens when you offer yourself an “attitude adjustment”, where appropriate of course. You wouldn’t want to try to change a perception around an accurate assessment of something that isn’t good for you. This is more about meeting unexpected developments and noticing how your attitude affects your experience as you move through challenges or disappointments.
Be sure to allow for mixed feelings, as it’s important to embrace your wholeness and include all levels of your awareness. Part of this practice calls on the importance and power of intention and is an invitation to notice the impact of conscious, intentional choice on the quality of your internal and external experience.
Also please be sure to bring along curiosity as your constant companion and to pat gently on the head any judgments that may arise, allowing them to move on through without your having to do anything with or about them. All these practices are offered as ways to discover what works for you and what doesn’t within the context of your internal quality of life and the choices that support healthy options.