Living Life in the Divine Flow: If It's Not Good, It's Not The End!

April 22, 2012

Dear Friends,

About a week ago, I watched a television interview with a well-known Olympic swimmer. During this interview, this female athlete said that her life has not always been “rainbows and butterflies.” I think that most of us can say something similar about our own lives, right?

Instead of rainbows and butterflies, we often experience thunderstorms and stinging bees. Or—to go back the metaphor in my first book, Row, Row, Row Your Boat—the waters of life are not always calm and clear. There are plenty of times when we find ourselves surrounded by rocks and rapids. The challenge in those trying times is retaining a sense of well-being by maintaining a state of mind that is constructive and productive.

Obviously, when you encounter an unexpected situation in life, it is neither constructive nor productive to immediately assume that it is “bad.” That kind of instant negativity blocks your connection to your own inner wisdom, and makes it difficult for you to be attuned to the divine guidance that is always leading you to a higher good.

To avoid that kind of mental and emotional block, you might adopt the opposite viewpoint, and label everything that happens in your life—even the most disturbing of events—as “good.” And if that purely positive attitude is totally sincere, that’s great. The trouble is, it is likely that part of you still harbors some doubts about the “goodness” of what you are experiencing. And that sets up a conflict within yourself that can interfere with your ability to make consistently wise choices.

So, if “sugar-coating” every challenging circumstance you face in life is not the best approach, then what is? Many people believe that the wisest way to respond to any perceived difficulty is to avoid labeling it as either good or bad. And there is a very sound basis for that. Because, in truth, nothing in and of itself is actually good or bad. It just is. We are the ones who assign meaning to what occurs in life. And the meaning we assign to things is highly biased and highly subjective—arising out of our own personal history and belief systems.

If you can be truly objective about what occurs in life—refusing to label anything that happens as either good or bad—there is a great sense of peace that results from that, and that’s wonderful. But to me, that kind of mind-set (if you are even able to achieve it) has one drawback. It may limit the possibility of your feeling anything beyond peace . . . such as joy. And I, for one, believe that our Spirits are in this world and in these bodies to experience joy, as well as peace.

If something happens that I think is good (even though I know it is just a subjective judgment on my part), I want to be able to experience all the wonderful feelings that go along with that—feelings like happiness and gratitude. And when things don’t seem to be going good? Well, I still want to experience good feelings! So how do I do that?

I look at every situation that appears to be bad, and see it as good in potential. In other words, I see everything as a stepping-stone to something good. What is happening right now may not be good, but it can always lead to something good. And that’s not just wishful thinking on my part. It has been my experience time and time again that the possibility for good exists within every situation . . . and the divine flow is continually working on my behalf—and everyone’s behalf—to manifest that good.

The choice is yours. You can achieve peace by assigning little or no meaning to what occurs in life. Or, can respond to life’s circumstances in a way that—to my mind—is even more positive and uplifting . . . by seeing everything that happens as either good, or good in potential.

I, for one, choose to thoroughly enjoy all the things that I believe are “good” in life. And more than that, I choose to appreciate the constant possibility of good in everything else. As the old saying goes:

“Everything is good in the end.

If it’s not good, it’s not the end."