How to Befriend Negative Transitions

For example, when the financial markets decline many investors have such an aversion to any kind of discomfort that they feel compelled to sell their investments at the worst possible time - after the markets have fallen. (Yes, I have done this once myself.) Alternatively, when we are aware of our aversive response, we can kindly acknowledge the discomfort, and use the potency of that pause to respond with wisdom instead of haste. 

At the August in-person Equanimity Retreat, we did an ice exercise to gain a sense of how we push away pain. We each had a felt experience of how pain intensifies when we resist it, like adding salt to the wound. For example, when I judge myself for a bad hire, the judging is adding to the painful consequences of that bad hire. The ice exercise taught us an alternate way to be with a challenge; to befriend it. That befriending gives us the ability to gain perspective, and access our wisdom, instead of our reactivity.

Danny Warshay, Executive Director of the Entrepreneurial Center at Brown University, and author of See, Solve, Scale found that entrepreneurs often originate the most successful ideas after a setback. Professor Dean Shepherd at Notre Dame found something similar - when we hit bottom, our constraints and limiting beliefs tend to soften, creating ripe conditions for finding a viable path forward. This supports the platitude that “necessity is the mother of invention.” When we have nothing to lose, we tend to become more creative. 

Five years ago, I met a young woman who had recently moved to the Bay Area from the Philippines. She wanted to be a singer, but felt stuck working at fast food restaurants to support herself. She couldn’t see a viable path forward, but she remained focused on her intention to be a professional singer. Instead of doing something impulsive, she asked a librarian for help, and through her research, learned that opera singers have a better chance of making a living in Germany than in the United States. She found a job as an Au Pair in Germany, and is now paving the way for a successful singing career.

Here’s a 5 minute practice for turning negative transitions into fertile ground for our future:

• Set a 3-minute timer and write about a challenging transition in your work or personal life using your first name instead of the pronoun “I”. (This creates a healthy distance to give you perspective). 
• For the next minute, sense how this transition feels in the body. Do this a few times a day. The goal is to get comfortable being uncomfortable.
• Then spend 1 more minute and ask yourself: What can I learn from this? How is this happening for me instead of to me?