Facing Challenges with Radical Gratitude

What happens when life gives us challenges?

Whether in the form of an external obstacle, a challenging conversation, or personal turmoil, challenges come our way every day.

How we approach these challenges will define the rate at which we grow and evolve individually and as a couple.

In the last two posts, we talked about accepting reality as it is, and loving every experience that arises. These are two excellent tools to put into practice when challenges come up.

There is a third tool that completes the trifecta of tools for loving your reality, and that is Radical Gratitude.

Radical Gratitude is about seeing every challenge that comes our way as the perfect opportunity to grow in the perfect way.

This doesn't just sound nice, it has the added benefit of working, too.

When something in your experience is challenging you, this is a signal to you that there is something to pay attention to, for your healing and learning.

I love the way that Gary Zukav explains this in the great book The Seat of the Soul:

"Within each experience of pain or negativity is the opportunity to challenge the perception that lies behind it, the fear that lies behind it, and to choose to learn with wisdom."

If there were nothing for you to learn in the experience, then it would not be a challenge.

For example, say you have always wanted to be an actor. You've been thinking about taking acting classes, but the thought of actually signing up for a class makes you really nervous. But when you think about singing up for drawing classes, you feel indifferent to the thought. This tells me that signing up for the acting class is exactly what you need to do. Why? If it weren't important to you, and there was no opportunity for your growth and development here, then you wouldn't be experiencing this challenging reaction. The drawing class doesn't elicit the same reaction because it's not important to you. Do you see? The things that challenge us show us where we have an opportunity to grow.

This is where Radical Gratitude comes in.

When we are challenged, we can recognize the challenge as the perfect opportunity to learn what needs to be learned, and to grow in the perfect way.

We can go beyond accepting the challenge as an opportunity to grow, and actually be grateful for this opportunity. If life did not give us these challenging opportunities, how would we continue to grow and evolve?

With this perspective, you can start to see any friction that comes up in your relationship as the perfect opportunity to grow as a couple and individually.

This helps you to recognize that a challenge in your relationship does not mean that something is wrong with your relationship. It is a signal that you are ready for another level of growth together.

Knowing this, you can be grateful for the challenge. THANK YOU for giving us this opportunity to grow together. Starting with this gratitude, you can then use other tools like the 4 questions, and loving what arises, and mirroring, to work through the challenge, and unearth the gold nugget of healing and growth contained within it.

Remember, your emotions have intelligence. You don't experience them at random and for no reason. Let's be grateful for the emotions that arise, and stay present with them, love them, and experience the gifts of growth and healing that they carry with them.

This is how your relationship can continue to grow deeper in love and connection, and how your relationship can be the perfect catalyst for your growth and partner's growth.

This is how the most challenging times can be the times that we look back on as the biggest blessings in our lives.

Love Fully,

Cass & Matt