hopefulness – Budget Bliss: Bucket List

In the spring of 2024, a wonderful and amazing phenomenon occurred. The Northern Lights were visible throughout much of Northern America, even down as far as Puerto Rico. Not only was it visible, it was visible on a Friday night, meaning that one was free to stay up late and really enjoy the rare visual display so far south. Unless you were where I lived. Where it was cloudy for miles. Unfortunately, I did not have the capacity to go drive for miles just to see them, though the temptation was certainly there.

The level of frustration that I felt the next morning seeing thousands of pictures flooding my feeds and social media was astronomical. It seemed that everyone else had gotten to enjoy my dream, but me. People who had not even cared about ever seeing the Northern Lights got to see them, but not me, a person who has been dreaming about it since she was a young child! It is always cloudy during major astronomical events at my house from the planetary alignment, to the comet to this! It was unfair! It wasn’t right! Stupid weather! Stupid sky! Stupid sun! Grrrrrrrr!!!

I took a deep breath, closed my eyes and reminded myself of all the times the universe had responded to my hopes with a no and how often those “no’s” had led to bigger and better things later. I would trust in the process of life. Had I not just experienced a total solar eclipse in Vermont after missing one almost seven years prior? If I had not missed out on the one, would I have gone to Vermont or New England? Perhaps, not. Did the “no” not open up something wonderful, even if seven years in the making?

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com

I could continue to dwell on it, cursing the decision I made to not drive in the middle of the night to go see them. But then would I have even enjoyed them, being tired and stressed out from rushing to see them? Would I have cut my experience short, because of the obligations I needed to meet the next day? Then having “crossed it off the list” no longer consider trying to go and see them to really enjoy them? A bucket list dream come true or a check in the box? There is a reason I opted not to jump in my car and rush to go see them. There is a reason, I choose to wait for the right time, because trying to force an experience often robs us of fully enjoying it. And truth be told, there have been several more instances since May of the Northern lights gracing the skies, only for it to be cloudy. Every. Single. Time. At this point, it’s just comedic, and I just laugh at the universe remembering that now is not the time to force things.

When we try to force things, it’s like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole, it just doesn’t work. There’s all these gaps around the peg where something is missing and it’s a tenuous hold at best. We rush through the experience, we don’t savor or enjoy it. The anxiety and stress of trying to just “make it work” is what we remember rather than the end journey. In our faulty human ways, we may end up sabotaging ourselves and robbing the future us of something much better. We miss the blessing that was being given to us in that moment, rejecting both the current one and the future one.

It can be difficult to accept missing out, especially when it is something you really wanted. It can be even more so when it seems that everyone else got it. The question becomes when is it my turn? When is it my time? Why can’t I have it right now? Don’t I deserve to have it? The answer may be not yet, it may even be not ever. That last one can be a difficult truth to swallow. Sometimes the “no” is unchanging and we will never get what we’ve asked for. We cannot know the reason for this, but focusing on the no, blinds us to all the times we hear yes. It robs us of the joy of what we have and the gratitude for all the blessings that are still coming. The not ever may be because we were meant for a bigger blessing than the one we were asking for, but if we constantly reject the blessing because we are so focused on the thing we wanted, then we may get neither.

No one likes missing out, and it is a perfectly human response to be frustrated and sad. However, we should not swim in these feelings, building up anger and resentment. Imagine if I had spent my time shaking my fist at heaven for a missed “blessing” when I had only a few weeks prior experienced an awe inspiring total eclipse? How quickly we forget the things we have, when we sit in a moment of lack. How fleeting those moments become when we let them slip through our fingers when the next obstacle comes into our path? If instead we focus on the blessings we have received, we bring those blessings forward with us into the moment. We instill hope for the future and begin to look forward to what surprises the universe may have in store for us. We find ourselves enriched rather than lacking.

The moment of frustration passed, leaving me sipping my coffee and reminiscing about my recent trip to New England. I relived the awe of seeing the sun slip behind the moon, the way the day turned to twilight, the sudden drop in temperature as the darkness took hold. The northern lights will come again and I will see them when the moment is right. Until then, I will continue to cultivate a bucket list life in all the moments between and continually recall the blessings I have received. I certainly don’t need to wait for the lights to check the other things off my list. After all, if I am become too laser focused on the lights, I may miss other opportunities for bigger and better things. Whatever blessings that are in store for me, I want to be there with arms open to receive them.

It has been noted by my fellow therapists that I am exceptionally good at what is called “reframing” or the practice of looking at a seemingly negative circumstance and seeing the positives in it. Even something like a loss may be reframed in a positive light despite the pain of the loss.

A forest fire is painful, but necessary for the life cycle of the forest. Loss in life is the same. The part that burned will take years, even decades to recover and the marks of the fire do remain even centuries later, else we would not find it in the records of the forest. However, without the fire new growth could not happen and the forest would ultimately suffer.

Consider the loss of a relationship after a break up. This could be a very good thing. After all, we only have so much time to cultivate and grow our relationships with other people. On average, we can really only maintain about 200 relationships, if someone leaves, what a delightful opportunity this could be! You may spend your energy elsewhere, growing deeper more meaningful relationships with those you already spend time with or it leaves you open to a new one. It is not to devalue the relationship that you had or have, people are not cogwheels easily replaced. We should also not adopt an attitude of not valuing relationships at all, having deep and meaningful relationships are important to our mental health and well-being. It is to say that we should mourn the loss and allow ourselves the opportunity to grow.

The reframe is not about finding a silver lining or putting a false positive “spin” on the facts. It is about not dwelling and getting ourselves mired in the muck. We are like cameras shifting our focus from the foreground where all the action is to the background where the action is about to happen. So often you’ll be watching a movie with a battle scene and right before the reinforcements arrive, the scene shifts to a blurry hill and then just as the cavalry crests the hill, it comes sharply into frame. That’s the reframe! It’s about focusing on what is going well or what could go well rather than what is going wrong or about to go wrong.

The cynical reader will rightly be grumbling about now about how the calvary doesn’t always come and the loss of the relationship didn’t result in any positive outcomes. This is true dear reader! Life can often seem terribly unjust and it is one catastrophe after another! A silver lining person may say something trite about how you gained all this resilience and built all this character. Character is nice and all but it doesn’t keep a roof over my head or food in my belly – unless you’re an actor then I suppose that’s sort of the job.

My response to this is that it isn’t helpful to dwell on the negative. Absolutely, acknowledge it, process it, be emotionally honest about the problems and then shift your focus to a growth mindset. You should never try to invalidate or suppress your feelings because that leads to its own problems. It isn’t helpful to impose self-limiting beliefs when you’re already in a limiting situation. This isn’t about false hope. My reframes are often from a very pragmatic and practical mindset focusing on positive things and trying to build on those positive items because that is what works.

Reframing is always asking if there is another way to view this issue. It challenges the current thought process to consider if your view realistic, is it based on facts or feelings, what other theories could you come up with to explain this situation, is it as black and white as you may think it is and is your view out of habit or is there something there to support it? It’s about questioning the current narrative to one where you can take steps towards the things you want. When we reframe, we remove roadblocks that we don’t even realize we set up.

The earlier reframe about a loss relationship is a direct challenge to the idea that it was the ONLY quality relationship a person could have and that without that relationship the person would die alone. By looking at it as an opportunity to cultivate the current relationships or allow a new relationships the narrative shifts from one of hopelessness to one of hope, from one of being closed off to relationships to openness to them.

Reframing about opening ourselves up to different stories that allow us to shape more desirable endings. It empowers you to take those negative thoughts around a problem and transform them into potential solutions. We aren’t able to control very much in this crazy chaotic world that we live in, but we can control our thoughts and how to respond to all the craziness that happens. When we overly focus on the negative aspects of a given issue, we give those more power than they have a right to have. By working to reframe, we shift the power back to ourselves, and place ourselves in a position to pivot to the opportunities that the universe presents us with.

Tag: hopefulness

Being Okay With Missing Out

Reframing: Shifting the Focus