Now is all we have, what are you focusing on to get the most from your time?

I don’t know about you, but for me and I think for most of us, its becoming increasingly clear that this is no longer our “new normal,” but our “now normal.”

And if we’re lucky, we are experiencing both a time of overwhelming uncertainty, doubt, and anxiety that at the same time holds much-needed time and space for reflection, introspection, and meditation.

I think that this is a time demanding to be seen as the opportunity it is: and it is an opportunity.

The opportunity to develop yourself; the opportunity to reforge relationships with your people, and the opportunity to reimagine your life. The opportunity to reconnect with ourselves and bring our best selves forward to the surface and step up and live from that ideal, live as that ideal.

If you want it, this can be your crucible moment: a transformative experience that defines your life and the story you tell of it.

What stories have you been telling yourself about you and your life experiences so far?

Is life hard? Have things been tough? Is it not fair? Are you not good enough? Are the things you want not available? Are you alone, isolated and different to everyone else? And not in a good , Wow look at me, aren’t I special kind of way. More in a wow, I’m such a loser, all the bad things happen to me way.

I’m going to say something now that might seem insenstitive, however I’m saying it with kindness and compassion because I’ve been in that place myself, for way too long. and the thing is this, Your sad stories are irrelevant!

Some people have horrible abusive childhoods and grow up to be successful productive adults because they don’t let their past define them, other people have an instant when their mother looked at them the wrong way and they are traumatised for life and never get past it. It’s not what happens to you, its what you do with the choices you make and the opportunities you create.

Pay attention the next time you meet someone new. Or are privy to two other people meeting and listen to what they talk about. And you’ll find that in almost every case we share our sad stories.

We bond with other people over our sad stories, we listen just long enough to their sad story until we can interrupt them with our even sadder story!

And we repeat them over and over, sometimes to people who have heard them many times and occasionally to people who have only just met us.