“It doesn’t always mean what you think it means.”
How would your life look and feel if you stopped attributing meaning to everything that happened? My past mentor would always say “we are meaning making machines” and it stuck. At that time, I constantly analyzed what I was experiencing with the goal of coming to a conclusion about it.
The conclusions were always a variation of “life is hard, life isn’t fair, it’s my fault, he’s the problem, I am not good enough, she always does this, I knew this would happen…”
These conclusions left me stuck and unhappy. I couldn’t get out of the cycle of making everything that happened mean something bad or even something good.
We are constantly judging the things that happen, the people in our lives and ourselves. These labels give us a sense of safety even if they are negative because we can “make sense of them” – if we believe life is unfair and something difficult happens that then becomes the proof that life is unfair. Similarly, if we believe making a certain amount of money means I am successful, not making that amount of money will leave us disappointed and unhappy.
Our life becomes very small, and we lose our power. It can feel suffocating because we are then blocking out any other possibility. It is a paradox, we want to feel safe so we come up with reasons why, yet we are creating tunnel vision for ourselves which leads to unhappiness.
Just for a moment, I want you to think about a challenge you have or are currently facing, now notice your thoughts about it.
What are you making it mean? About yourself? About others? About life?
Now, take a deep breath, relax, or go for a short walk and then imagine, letting go of all those labels.
Instead, consider that it doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t mean anything about yourself, about others or about life. Notice how you feel.
The truth is that we don’t know everything, our thoughts are not truth, situations + hardships don’t have to mean anything – they just are. It simply IS. And what’s hurting you is not what “is” but the meaning you have given to it.
We don’t need to lock ourselves into a prison of knowing + meaning making. Set yourself free by removing the meaning to every little thing that challenges or upsets you. It doesn’t have to mean what you think it means. In fact, it doesn’t have to mean anything at all.
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