Love Your Circumstances.

I was meditating on feeling at peace in the moment when the moment isn’t “ideal.” We all have carried the burden of unwanted circumstances. It is an unexplainable pain that has the tendency to linger for lengthy time periods. Burdens can be a cause of stagnation; the feeling of being stuck in a difficult situation. In mindfulness, what is the appropriate solution to getting through difficult circumstances?

I have long been a fan of quotes and the applicable nature they have to daily life. Recently, I was reading from a few mindfulness books to sharpen my teachings. One of the titles of the chapter read; “Just Love Your Circumstances.”

I thought about those words… Love your circumstances. I decided to dedicate my meditation to that specific phrase. For me, it always helps to meditate on a phrase for cultivating a deeper understanding.

After meditation, “loving your circumstances” just clicked.

Loving your circumstances does not mean everything is perfect. Rather, we adapt the view of looking at everything as a new type of acceptance. We can make peace with our current situation by ACCEPTING our reality. Having an “accepting” rather than “lacking” mindset shifts our focus to the things that spark joy. Joy comes in the form of looking to everything going right, rather than the one (or multiple) things shifting in the wrong direction. 

We have a habit of looking to the future when we are dissatisfied. We bargain with ourselves; claiming if we change certain things, then everything will magically be fixed. We let our dreams of the future take advantage of our attention. The problem with this mindset is the future is absent from our current reality.

The only moment we have is the current moment.

Aside from looking into the future, we can ask ourselves; “What can I do with my circumstances now to improve them for the future? How do I accept what I have now without holding onto something that hasn’t happened?”

One of the mantras extremely helpful for this is the following;

“I am present with my circumstances, good and bad, both of which I choose to accept in the now.”  

How can you show love to your circumstances when they are not perfect?

©  Marissa Ranahan 2017 - all rights reserved.