I’ve learned to keep an observer’s position most of the time in my life and to not jump in too quickly. This allows me time to gather all the facts and not just the ones that present themselves at the beginning; later, I often find lies and untruths masquerading as the truth.

This self-learned approach in my own life has allowed me to remain calmer and not jump in with both feet emotionally and then later find out I had overreacted. It takes practice to do this, so give yourself time to learn this new approach.

Course correction is harder when we’ve emotionally invested in a direction, so seeing how something plays out is quite helpful. When we don’t try to “pick a side” too quicky, or become emotionally invested, we allow our minds to examine and feel out what’s actually going on and if it’s something we wish to align ourselves with.

It isn’t being disloyal to not quickly attach ourselves. Emotional immaturity demands an immediate allegiance. Emotional maturity allows oneself to see both or all sides of an issue, without the need to jump in too quickly declaring a team side.

These critical thinking skills are necessary to develop when one wants to live a life that is authentic to who we are, and to develop ourselves fully.

The Hot Goddess shares her thoughts of life and personal growth in “Reimagining Midlife Over 60 as a Solo Expat in Portugal”. I love the following quote in Midlife Mud & Metacognition in Portugal:

In giving myself permission to live an authentic life, I understand that copying someone else’s answer to living will only cheat me of the life that’s right for me. Our authentic life is on the other side of a deep understanding of who we are, what we want, and why. Thinking about my thinking revealed patterns of self-sabotage and self-critical storytelling that I’m still trying to address. It’s a journey. One that I continue to navigate here in my “new” life in Portugal. The silt, sand, and soil of my 65 years haven’t settled yet. There will always be some sudden disturbance that stirs up our sediment, but being mindful of our thinking aids the settling. Our water runs clearer as it flows down rocky streams of thought into a pool of understanding.

“The Hot Goddess” Midlife Mud & Metacognition in Portugal

Being able to release expectations and just live life as it unfolds, will offer the greatest peace. When we invest ourselves emotionally in how we need to see our lives, it often leads to great pain and disillusionment when life throws those curve balls. We like to think, as per many popular cultural gurus, that we can control our lives to attain all our goals, and that once we learn the secrets to “manifesting” that we can become powerful in controlling the outcomes.

Life happens, some say there is a Divine plan, others say the universe knows where and when things should and will happen in our lives, others say we are fated, others say we have predetermined everything before coming into this life. All of the above may be true, or some of it, but one thing we can be certain of, life will sometimes throw us curve balls we didn’t see coming.

We have only to look at 2 major catastrophes in recent history to see how easily millions of lives were changed, and no one predicted those outcomes. Look back at all the people “manifesting” money and wealth just prior to the economic crash of 2008, when the mortgage and housing market came crashing down, due to a perfect storm of events. Or look at COVID shutting down the planet and people’s lives getting upended in a myriad of ways.

As much as we would like to imagine we can control our lives, it’s quite humbling to acknowledge we aren’t all powerful. Even if we’re not trying to exert major control over our lives, we still harbor expectations of being able to manage our days, so when unexpected things come up that derail or side-track our plans, we get stressed or even angry.

As you’re no doubt aware, there is a lot of collective anger and angst being felt right now, and many are having a difficult time regulating their nervous systems.

What if a single mental shift could help you handle life better?

Christmas Shinton speaks of exactly this in his TicToc video, “The fine print of suffering”. I hope you enjoy it!

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTMvwy8mo/

• Letters unsent
• Where do you start when you don’t know where to start?
• Generational curses: are they breakable?
• Those who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it!
• Revenge: is it necessary or not?
• Mindfulness Resources
• Need to start over in life, or need to make life-altering changes, but don’t know how?
• Life will continue to go on… choose the direction you wish to go
• 13 Signs of Serious Anger Issues (you may not think yours are all that bad!)
• Why venting anger just makes us angrier, and ways to deal with it.

 ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Blessings!
Thank you for liking, sharing this post and for following me!
Tamara

I hope you’ll poke around my Archived Posts Main page divided up into 3 sub-pages: Mental Health and Rewiring the Brain || Healing and Developing Ourselves || Positive thoughts and Affirmations to find a wonderful trove of supportive and encouraging posts!
https://tamarakulish.com/

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