Yesterday while I was folding laundry I heard my son in his room playing. He is very into Ninja Turtles at the moment, so it’s common place to hear him talking like Michelangelo {or as he lovingly calls him, Mikey the Jokester}, and jumping around doing karate kicks. He has an orange bandanna mask that he sometimes wears when he’s really in the mood to “play the part”. When I opened his door, I literally laughed out loud. I guess he couldn’t see his bandana which was on top of his dresser, so instead he was wearing orange gym shorts on his head.
I love the creativity and inventiveness (is that a word?) of children. They have a vision (in this case, being Michelangelo), they have an obstacle or challenge creating it (unable to find the real bandana), they keep going (and use shorts instead). Simple wisdom.
Obstacles are a natural part of life. No one is without them, and they can pop up anywhere, anytime, and often when we least expect it! Think about it, you’re driving to work right on schedule, and BAM, a detour pops up in the middle of the road. You have a plan to make a beautiful salad for dinner, and the market only has wilted lettuce left. You are looking forward to a romantic night out with your sweetie, when he/she storms in the door after a horrible day at work.
Yes, don’t I know it, obstacles and challenges occur ~ nothing goes perfectly as planned. But I always try to remember, the strongest tree is not the Oak Tree (as we would think because of its sturdy appearance), even stronger is the Palm tree because of its agility and flexibility, that when storms and strong winds come, it can bend! It looks a bit flimsy, but what we may consider a weakness, is actually its power and strength.
The thing is, since all life is a lesson, we can learn a lot about ourselves by examining the obstacles we’ve already faced. You might want to write down an example of when you overcame an obstacle. Here are a couple of questions to consider: How did you handle the challenge? How did you go over, break through it, or work around it? What inspired you to continue moving and/or confront the roadblock?
Awareness is always a key tool in discovery. Just acknowledging and recognizing your obstacles (if they are holding you back), can be very insightful. Using the “Over, Through, or Around” technique, gives us a simple framework for moving forward. I usually question myself with the challenges I am facing that weigh me down – do I want to work over, through, or around this obstacle?
Sometimes we don’t really have a choice – if we want to move forward, we have to work over it, or work around it, or work through it. Sometimes trying to work around it really {if your honest with yourself} isn’t in fact working, in which case we have to work through it. Sometimes, there is no working through it, we need to re-route if we want to move forward, take a detour and work around it, like my son putting the shorts on his head. You get my drift.
These are all very personal choices, and the thing is {NEWSFLASH}, we’re not perfect, we all make mistakes, especially when we are being challenged, and that’s ok. We can learn from them, grow from them, and often, we discover a deeper meaning from them in this beautiful gift of life. But the point is, we don’t give up and stop moving. We can pause, of course, take a beat to listen to our heart – sometimes I think maybe the setback is intentional, God wants to move me somewhere else, I just need to get out of my own head and listen to the direction. I can’t help but think of the story of Jonah in the belly of that big fish during the crazy storm…he was probably terrified flailing around inside a whale?? But, as the lesson goes, the whale actually saved his life.
How do you handle obstacles and challenges? I’d love to hear so we can all learn from each other!!
Enjoy this beautiful day!
