EPIC SHIT
all the time, all around us, to us, to others.
What’s your ARSE?
I’ve been taking a step back these past months to really put more energy into myself: me, my things, my space.
To think about and to feel what I’m doing and how I want to do this thing they call life.
I’ve hit this massive pause button to enable myself to ‘be’ more to help me to appreciate and focus on acknowledging the things that I want in my life and that keep me striving for more.
The first thing that dawned on me was Epic Shit. Pressing the pause button allowed me to really notice the Epic Shit which is happening all around us. Take Harvey and Irma, for example, totally out of our control, changing the lives of thousands, hogging the media, intruding on our senses. What a life changer for some; absolute deluge if you were personally affected and even if you were just a bystander you couldn't – and didn’t – want to ignore what was happening in the lives of others. And then there was the latest terrorist attacks on the London Tube. And then the earthquake in Mexico and now there’s Vegas. I haven't looked at the news reports today; I’m bracing myself for what could be next.
Epic Shit is not just occurring on a huge scale but on an individual level, much closer to home.
Here’s a pick of the shittiest experiences I’ve witnessed happening to friends, family and clients in the last month alone:
- Losing something majorly significant;
a father to Cancer, your house and belongings are gone, the only job you’ve ever had, or having major surgery where you lose mobility and lie on your back for weeks
- Or gaining something you didn’t want or see coming;
painful knowledge, understanding of the fragility of someone you love dearly, knowing that losing them is just around the corner, the knowledge of deceit, powerlessness
If you stand still long enough, you’ll just see all of this shit flying past and some of the time you can dodge it, it’s just luck. Maybe you’ll just get a smudge on your shoulder (a bit like baby vom), but then there are others, there are times when we get hit hard, front on and centre.
What’s your Automatic Response to a Shitty Experience?
What’s your ARSE?
The thing is, the Epic Shit is going to keep on coming throughout life. (Apologies if that requires a spoiler alert for some. It’s just that I’m super honest and really good at saying the stuff that’s actually happening, it’s a Coaching Superpower.)
Your ARSE will determine the outcome of the shitty experiences. It’s how we handle the shitty times that make our experiences a life. And not just any life but the one we are striving for, the one we want and the beauty we desire. How you chose to react and deal with the uncontrollable things that come flying past, brings us to the place we desire to be.
So the next time the shit hits the fan. Press the pause button, take a minute to think and be in that moment. Ask your self “what’s my ARSE right now?”
Most likely, the options will be something along the lines of:
Option 1: Dodge it (if you are lucky). “It’s not my turn”…yet. The impulse to run baby run as far from it as you possibly can to make it go away. You are experiencing an ARSE HIDING.
Result: You’ll always be running, you’ll eventually fall and you’ll be covered in shit.
Option 2: Look around for someone else to clean it up for you. Looking for a solution from external influences and deflecting any kind acceptance, responsibility or ownership. Closing your senses off to everything and anything that remotely smells shitty and wishing with all your heart that someone else can deal with it. Your only hope is that life will resume to it’s normal state ASAP. I call this the CLEAN ARSE.
Result: Total denial that we all have Epic Shit. Going through a life not lived. Trying to stay clean means that you sit in the corner and don’t get to fully experience or explore.
What if you could be SMART ARSE?
What if you could catch that shit, experience it, know it, accept it, own it. Even see the value in it?
How would it be if you could accept what is thrown at you, understand and appreciate it? Be willing to embrace the effect it has upon those around you and what it means to you on your journey? What if you could feel strong on the inside no matter what comes your way? What if you had tools and knowledge that allowed you to trust yourself with an abundance of confidence to face the times that test us. Imagine the power of choosing your reactions, understanding your responsibilities and taking control of only those things that are controllable.
How might that empower us to look beyond what we know in our mind and what we’ve experienced with our body? Maybe you would give yourself permission to be vulnerable and to seek help, to reach out and accept your own fragility?
Life isn’t all about the actual Epic Shit that happens to us, it’s about our ARSE, how we chose to respond to it.
That is our journey, that’s why we are here to absorb what life has in store for us and to do with it what we want and can.
Southern Life Coaching - Working with Smart ARSE folk.