I loved paying tag as a kid. I was the fastest child on the elementary school playground, so I was rarely “it”.  It felt like flying and no one could catch me.  And then one day when I was 9 or 10, I looked over my shoulder to make sure no one was behind me, I turned my head back and… BAM… the next thing I knew I was in the nurse’s office wondering what had hit me and how I had gotten there.  I certainly had no memory of walking there, or had an angel picked me up and carried me?  I never did find out how I got there!  BTW, it was a basketball pole I had run into…a really big one!

Has that ever happened to you?  Everything seems to be fabulous; you are having a great time and then…BAM…some situation comes out of nowhere and whacks you just like a big old basketball pole?  What do you do?  Lay there?  Pretend it didn’t happen?  Fall apart?  Accept help?  Or maybe even blame the basketball pole for being there in the first place?  And yes, I’ve made every one of those choices at one time or another.

Life can appear to be so unfair when something comes up that takes us off our journey.  And sometimes our journey changes completely due to the incident.

The absolutely best thing you can do at the first opportunity is take the step back from what is happening and shift your perspective.  Quiet your mind, which can be difficult in the middle of chaos!  Breathing is great.  That’s why so many meditation gurus say to concentrate on your breath.

And then, look at what has happened from an outside point of view, or from the view of the other person if someone else was involved.  Check in with how you feel.  Once you do that, if it feels right, shift your viewpoint to a future perspective – say three years. Does this thing even matter?

Doing this can help you see the situation for what it is, and then grow and learn from it.  You may even find the new journey is better than where you were heading in the first place.