How seeing the gift in every situation is one of the greatest skills in life.

As I write this, I am acutely aware that there have been so many challenges, struggles, trauma, loss of life, freedom, jobs, health and many other things. This article is by no means meant to lessen these events, merely to invite you to begin to understand the power of perspective and reframing.

Our minds are already well versed in looking for the negative, the threat, the problem, the issue. An evolutional ‘skill’ that is designed to help us survive and it is much needed, to live without it would probably result in certain death, think cars, trains, deep water etc.

However, when that part of us was created, we had multiple threats on a regular basis to deal with and we literally lived in life or death situations on a regular basis. It is a sad fact that there are still many human beings who live like this on a daily basis but that is a conversation for another day.

Many of us also like to relive events that have traumatised us, again an evolutionary skill that sets us apart from animals such as a Zebra, one moment running for its life from a Lion, the next grazing happily as if nothing happened. It is thought that this evolved to protect us from making the same mistakes again. However, one close shave of being made to feel humiliated by a girlfriend/boyfriend doesn’t make all girl/boyfriends or indeed all people with a similar look or mannerisms a potential source of humiliation.

In order to live a content and peaceful existence in our heads as well as in life in general, we need to learn to take charge of our thoughts. Not to control them for that will send messages to our brains that are often interpreted as our own internal threat and as you can imagine, that Zebra could never rest and eat happily if it was both Zebra and Lion in one.

One way to learn to self-command your thoughts is to recognise the tendency to look for the negative or the threat and learn to redirect your thoughts to see the gift - the learning - the positive outcome. Don’t get me wrong, this may not always be immediately apparent.

For instance, I can tell you that being diagnosed with Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue with 4 children was certainly no gift at the time, nor was it positive in any conceivable way. I was in a dark place, I didn’t know how to get out of it and felt pretty helpless.

Now, 11 years later I am truly thankful for the gift that time gave me. I would probably still be an administrator, still limping through life. a shadow of who I was capable of being but didn’t know how to be.

Major life events often take a while to see the gift - if you see it at all.

But think smaller, think of daily events that could go either way.

Getting caught in a rain shower but getting to see a beautiful rainbow as a result.

Missing the bus which results in bumping into a friend that you haven’t seen for ages whilst you wait 30 minutes for the next one.

That top you wanted to buy not being in stock in your size, only to find something much better the next day.

A house sale falling through only to find that another that ticks ALL your boxes comes on the market a couple of weeks later.

Not getting that job that you thought was your dream job, then discovering that they went bust 6 months later.

So I have a question for you. Think about a past event that, at the time you were pretty down about, then look for the learning, the gift.

What were the learnings from that event, that time, that situation?

What was the gift or gifts that time and perspective allows you to notice?

This is called reframing. Taking a negative and finding the positive.

Learning to look back and see the gift in every situation is a powerful tool for many reasons. It teaches our minds that there is often good that comes from the bad which overrides our natural tendency to look mostly for the bad. It teaches you to self-command your thoughts - to choose what you remember, what you have learnt, how you view life. It gives you perspective so that you view your life from a place of balance and recognition that life is full of ups and downs and not just downs.

What is even more powerful is to know, in the moment, that somehow, something good will come out of the negative situation you find yourself and think very quickly:

What is this trying to teach/show me?

What positives could occur as a result of this?

I wonder what the gift will be in this?

Having this way of being as an automatic skill that runs on autopilot allows you to live life knowing that somehow, things will be ok.

Seeing the gift, looking for the gift, will directly impact your ability to be resilient in life.

One of the greatest skills in life is to be able to see the gift of every situation. When you master this skill then you will always be thriving.