How to Use Contrast to Enhance Your Life
In my work as a Life On Purpose Coach many of my clients often
experience times of "extreme contrast". These times can be very
difficult and challenging and may have actually been what led
them to seek out my services. So, let's look at how we can use
contrast to actually enhance our lives.
Contrast is defined in the dictionary as 'to compare or appraise
in respect to differences.' Now we can either use this contrast
to be right and make others wrong -- which we often do -- or we
can use it to further distinguish what we want in our life, who
we are committed to being, etc. by looking at what we don't want
-- the contrast -- and allow it to point us to what we do want.
Simple example. My family and I were recently in a community
play. One of the college age girls in the cast that my 13-year
old daughter, Amber, really likes and viewed as an older sister
role model, invited Amber to spend the night and part of the
next day with her. But when the night came, she suddenly
couldn't do it, giving the explanation that she needed to clean
her apartment instead. When Amber offered to help with the
cleaning, she declined. We later found out a boy had offered to
come over and fix dinner for her and a friend.
When I learned of this I was livid and indignant. How dare she
treat my daughter this way? I was ready to call her and point
out in very clear and angry terms the error of her ways. I
spouted off for a while to Ann and Amber while driving home from
rehearsal which helped me to calm down enough to consider
another possible way to 'respond instead of react.' I finally
got to the point that I decided to use this 'contrast' to look
more deeply at what's really important to me, to examine my core
values. From this examination I realized that integrity, which
includes keeping one's word, is an important value of mine. In
other words, integrity is something I am willing to invest time
and energy into having more of in the world, especially in my
world.
Now, it's likely that at some point I will speak to the young
lady IF and WHEN I can discern a way to speak my truth in a way
that she can hear it and be contributed to by it. And from a
place of righteous indignation (which is where I was) isn't the
place or way to speak that will serve.
So, when the Universe offers you up a big plate of extreme
contrast, what will you discern and learn? What ways of being
are you seeing in others and perhaps in yourself that you
realize no longer serve? From there, look to see what other way
of being could serve to, in a sense, counterbalance the other
way? If you viewed this contrast as the Cosmic UPS Truck trying
really hard to deliver you a gift, what is the gift(s) wrapped
within the packaging of this contrast?
Inspire yourself with a fr.ee subscription to Purposeful
Pondering Ezine:
http://lifeonpurpose.com/index.php?dir=_ezines&task=view-ezines