Why Do Bad Things Keep Happening to Me?
Or, How to Poop Rainbows
The answer is in the question. Bad things keep happening to you if you are the type of person who believes bad things keep happening to them. I’m going to give you some easy steps to change your beliefs, and when you follow them, you’ll become the type of person who poops rainbows, just like me.
First though, let’s define “Bad.”
Thanks to Melissa Storm for the 'poops rainbows' metaphor
Defining 'Bad'
I’m going to try to make this very simple, but it’s a complicated concept that deserves to be pondered deeply and often for the rest of our lives. But here’s the nutshell: Every time something bad happens to you, it forces you to find a solution. When you solve the problem you labeled bad, you are now in a better place, a higher place, than you were before the bad thing happened. So really, how bad was it?
Example: Smallpox outbreak = Bad Smallpox vaccine = Good Smallpox eradicated = Great
Or my own example.
Publisher forced me out = Bad Had no choice but to go indie = Good Quintupled my income = Great!
It’s the same pattern with every single so-called bad thing that happens, if you will get out of the way and let it be. However, if you ignore the problem (as I ignored the increasing problems with Harlequin over the years) it will get bigger. And bigger. And bigger. Until you finally move away from the problem and toward the solution.
Here's the pattern as it unfolds for Person A
Bad thing happens.
We focus on the bad thing happening. We talk about it, post about it, tweet about it, lie awake worrying about it, hate it, resent it, complain about it, gripe and bitch and moan about it.
Bad thing gets worse.
Repeat 1-3 until you want to jump off a bridge.
Here's the pattern as it unfolds for Person B
Bad thing happens.
We have a knee-jerk oh, shit reaction, but quickly grab hold of that.
We mull on where our attention has been, and how it created this problem.
We start to mull on how this problem is going to force us to move up to a better place in order to solve it.
We shift our entire focus to the solution, actively moving ourselves into the vibration of the solution.
The solution becomes. We are better than we were before. The problem has transmuted into a gift.
Having big bills forces us to find ways to pay them. So we do, and then they’re paid. And there we are, having created new streams of income that we can now spend as we please. This is how problems are actually gifts. They force us to grow into solutions that leave us better off than we were before the problem came.
~Maggie Shayne
So how do I change from Person A to Person B?
Note: This is the fun part.
Stop labeling things as problems or as bad. Try calling them challenges and opportunities for growth.
When something you feel is devastating happens to your career, trust that it’s happening for a reason that is always in your best interest, in ways you might not be able to see right now.
As quickly as the problem arrives, shift your focus to what the solution might be, and more importantly, how good it will feel once it’s in place.
Try to find the pattern of thought that might have led to the problem in the first place. If you don’t figure it out, that’s okay too. But it bears a brief ponder.
Focus on the silver linings this problem must be bringing.
Example: This month my office’s septic tank and well both went bad. At the same time I learned I had a large corporate tax amount due that I was not expecting. And this all came just after Phase 2 of an expensive construction project had finally got underway. Too late to stop or postpone, so that would require large payments as well.
As hard as I pondered, I couldn’t figure out where my attention had been that might have caused the problems, which at their heart, were about cashflow. And then I thought, you know, our business has kind of been stuck in place—in a very good place, yes, but stuck all the same. I’d been feeling as if I’ve been pushing against an invisible boundary between where I am, and the next level where I want to be. Financial challenges lead to financial solutions. Figuring out how to bring in enough to pay for all the “disasters” would result in forcing me to the next level on this particular area.
As I began juggling finances and paying one thing and another, I discovered that the more I paid out, the lower that big chunk of tax due was becoming. Already, the beginnings of a silver lining. And I know, because I’ve been doing this for a while, that all these bills are going to make me a wealthier person on the other side.
See how that works? [bctt tweet=”Problems come to push you toward solutions. So debt pushes you to wealth, illness to health, sadness to joy, failure to success. BlissBlog.org” username=”@maggieshayne”]
How to break the cycle of bad luck
Finally, as promised, here’s how to change yourself from a person who believes bad stuff is always happening them, into a person poops rainbows, or more accurately, a person who knows how to transmute poop into rainbows, complete with pots of gold at the end. (Not depicted.) And it’s so simple and easy I can’t believe the whole world isn’t already doing it.
Every morning, when you wake up, decide that today you’re going to look for good things to happen to you.
Pay extreme attention to watching for those good things. There will be a quiz!
Every evening, before bed, write down ten positive things that happened to you that day.
If you make this a practice, every day, or at least more often than not, you will find that your default setting gradually shifts from pessimism to optimism. It’s all about where your focus is. You get what you’re looking for. If you’re on the lookout for good things, good things are attracted to you.
People who think bad things always happen to them, start seeing proof of it. Their habit of thought transforms them into magnets for bad things. And every time one comes, they say, “See? I told you bad things happen to me.” And it snowballs.
People who think good things always happen to them, start seeing proof of it. Their habit of thought transforms them into magnets for good things. And every time one comes, they say, “See? I told you good things happen to me.” And it snowballs.
And here, for your viewing pleasure, is a unicorn pooping rainbows.
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