Terrie’s Tip – Take some time each day to look at all that happened but examine each thing closely to see what opportunity is hiding beneath the surface.

There are a lot of “self-help” discussions on opportunity and even though I used to just get “bored” when things are repeated over and over, this topic always pops up when it’s supposed to in my life.

Things happen in our lives for a reason even if we have no idea what that reason is and won’t for a long time. But the very special part of turning your thinking around is that when you search the events of your life, it’s better than hunting for gold – it’s definitely a treasure hunt.

If you just take an event with the initial reactions/emotions and don’t go any deeper we’ll never find the gifts that were put in front of us. For each event is a gift – whether it’s a good one or a bad one. It’s pretty easy to see the gifts when you interpret an event as good. But the bad ones….well, not so easy. It’s easier to just stay angry, sad, resentful or whatever and not moving forward.

But what if you decided that you wanted to see what treasure is deep within? Doesn’t that thought just get your excitement up? It does mine. What if you decided you were going to find the diamond – the opportunity – in each and every “negative” appearing thing that happens to you? Wouldn’t that be special – to know that there is an opportunity for you to find and explore? And if that opportunity could lead you to much greater happiness – wouldn’t that be worth the few minutes you’ve taken to just open your mind and investigate?

I have been guilty of not doing this for most of my life but I have been pretty good at doing it in reverse. What I mean by that is looking back and seeing how the things that happened to me that were not what I wanted at the time actually turned out best for me. I only wonder how wonderful it would have been to recognize the opportunities at the time.

But in the past year and then in the past few months I’ve been looking at things in a different light. Two examples come to mind but I’ll only give one here and save the other for another post.

It has to do with my flat tire this week. Who knew that one simple old flat tire could end up hogging 3 posts? LOL

But the opportunity that came from that was my personal growth. When I pulled over I knew I had AAA but didn’t want to have to deal with an unknown person. I wanted comfort – this was a subconscious feeling but as I look at it, it was there. So who could I call? Could I call? I mean after all it’s asking for help and most of you know how hard that is for me to do. But I was in a dilemma because my “go to” neighbor was gone I thought. So, without hesitation, I texted my other neighbors – people whom I adore but have never really asked for help. It was a brave moment for me. And as I found out he, too, was out of town, I was thinking of who else I could call. This is unheard of for me.

What was the opportunity buried in my flat tire? One was how calm I felt and I wanted to deal with everything in life like that. So, what do I need to do to get there? And that’s where the opportunity is – examining what made me calm and how to continue that. And, what made me brave enough to ask people for help? The work I have been doing with IFS and examining my limitations and what parts need to be heard (IFS is “parts” therapy). You don’t need to understand this but just know that it’s something I’ve been involved in for the past 8 months or more and heavily for 6 months. This event showed me what could be for me if I continue doing the same and more. I would just have thought of this as another inconvenience had I not taken the time to examine the event looking for the opportunities.

There is an opportunity to grow in every single event we experience. Our only job is to look for it so go get your metal detectors and find the treasure deep within.

Terrie’s Tip – Keep your tires inflated and in good repair but don’t neglect care of the inside of your vehicle (your body).

So I’m sure those of you who saw my deflated tire yesterday expected a post on flat tires…and since I would hate to disappoint, here ya go!

Let’s look at the tire, ok? Well, maybe not…first we should look at the vehicle. There are plenty of uses for tires off of vehicles but their primary use is to help make a vehicle move smoothly. The wheel shape and the material used to make it all are part of it. But would we need tires without a vehicle? Probably not, Then it would just be called a wheel. We use vehicles to take us from place to place. Just as we use our bodies to take us from place to place. Do most of us go out every time we’re going to run to the store (or did before the pandemic anyway) and kick the tires and check the air pressure and alignment, etc.? I would venture to say no, most of us don’t. Often times we don’t even think anything of our tires until our vehicle (our bodies) start to act up.

• We shimmy
• We hear noises that didn’t use to be there
• We don’t stop as quickly and safely as we used to

But even then we often ignore the signs until it’s too late. Yet, we will stop and take our car to the car wash to get it to look pretty again. But that’s generally the outside. Maybe we’ll clean the inside when we have time but….

Many of us want to look nice on the outside so we worry about our weight, our muscles or lack thereof, our clothes, our hair (well I need to get up to speed on that one with my covid hair) and anything else that we think others might judge us by. No one ever thinks that they will be judged by how horrible their body may look on the inside.After all – who’s going to judge us? We tend not to think of the importance of the operation of these internal organs – the engine.

When our tires deflate we have to (or should) stop. This is our body telling us to stop and take a look at what’s going on in our lives (bodies). It’s a fitting metaphor that the air goes out of the tire and it deflates. Our ability to move around and go at the speed we want is suddenly deflated. We need to be getting the message here.

If we’re going at a very fast speed, that deflation may cause further damage and we really get the message. That is telling us we are moving through life way too fast and not paying attention to anything other the external factors.

If we’re not going so fast, we may have time to get to the side of the road and stop to repair your tire.

I’ll stop here even though i could go on and on with this but I think you get the point.

Check your tires.