It's Easy To Be Zen When Life Goes Your Way

Only about forty eight years late to the party, I finally got to see one of my teen crush bands last night when I went to see Duran Duran at Leeds First Direct Arena (fab venue btw) with my girls. A top evening, a lot of nostalgia and so great to see my children enjoying themselves too - even though we were collectively gutted that they didn't play The Chauffeur! Save a Prayer more than made up for it.

Not usually know for planning social occasions in minute detail, generally prefering to go with the flow, on this occasion I’d thought of everything. Or so I'd thought. Where to park, how to get there, leave plenty of time to get a meal beforehand. I had a lovely picture in my head of how the evening would unfold.

Except, of course, life had other ideas.

The queen of manifesting parking spaces was in the house - I have that one nailed these days. I've driven to Leeds a number of times and always managed to get myself in wrong lanes and get lost, even with sat nav. This time we found the spot and parked with ease and loads of time to spare. But then we found ourselves wandering the streets in the pouring rain and driving wind, getting progressively colder and wetter, trying to find somewhere to eat. Everywhere seemed to be fully booked, time was ticking away and I noticed myself getting more and more stressed - a combination of time pressure, hunger and wind. The weather kind, not mine. I've always noticed that the wind gets me stirred up. I said to the girls, 'I'd be fine if the sun was shining'.

And there it was. Me making my peace, serenity and ability to stay cheerful dependent on external circumstances. Irritation. Impatience. Frustration. They all came out to play.

I could feel myself getting hooked.

Now, I’ve invested a considerable amount of time, energy and money in my personal development over the years. Not because I aspire to become some sort of enlightened guru, but because I want to enjoy my life. As much as I possibly can.

I want to experience more peace, more joy, more serenity. I want to make the most of this one precious life I’ve been given, rather than spend it feeling irritated or upset by things I can’t control.

It’s pretty easy to feel peaceful, serene and joyful when everything is going your way. But look, 'A smooth sea never made a skilled sailor.' Right? As annoying as it is, there is a fundamental truth in there.

When you’ve parked the car, walked straight into the restaurant of your choice, the sun is shining and the birds are singing, life feels pretty wonderful.

But what happens when it isn’t?

When you are in a hurry and someone pulls out in front of you in traffic and proceeds to drive like a snail. When the washing up is still in the sink or the wet towel is lying on the bathroom floor for the umpteenth time, despite desperate pleas to a darling daughter to engage the tiny sliver of teenage brain reserved for thinking beyond themselves.

Suddenly, that lovely sense of inner peace seems to have packed its bags and buggered off. (Yes. I know. It feels tempting!)

So here’s what I’ve come to understand.

These moments aren’t backward steps in our personal development and our road to emotional mastery. They’re an essential part of it.

It’s easy to believe we’re becoming more patient, more accepting, less judgemental when nothing is testing us. But how do we know how much we’ve actually changed until we’re presented with the very circumstances that used to send us into a spin?

Those moments of irritation, impatience and judgement are our teachers. Sometimes they’re rather persistent teachers!

The temptation, particularly when we’ve done a lot of inner work, is to judge ourselves for having those feelings in the first place.

The inner critic loves to get involved in this one! We say things like, 'I should know better by now. Why am I letting this get to me? Why can’t I just rise above it?'

And before we know it, we’re annoyed with ourselves for being annoyed! Cue the vicious circle.

So what to do? Well, what if we approached these teaching moments differently? What if, instead of trying to suppress the irritation, wrestle the impatience to the ground or berate ourselves for being judgemental, we allowed ourselves to be human, to feel the feelings and not judge ourselves for feeling them or blame others for causing them? What if we became curious instead?

What is it about this situation that’s bothering me so much? What expectation am I holding on to? What am I insisting should be different from how it actually is? And, most importantly, how well does it serve me to hold onto it?

More often than not, it’s not the circumstances themselves that are creating our distress. It’s the gap between what’s happening and what we think should be happening.

Last night, I wanted a lovely evening with my children. I had a picture of how that would look, and when reality didn’t match it, I could feel myself resisting. The rain wasn’t personal. The restaurants weren’t conspiring against us. Nothing had actually gone wrong. Things were just going the way they were going. They simply weren’t unfolding according to my plan of perfection.

And that was the lesson.

Inner peace isn’t the absence of irritation, frustration or disappointment. It’s developing the awareness to recognise those feelings without automatically allowing them to dictate our experience.

We don’t have to get it right every time. We don’t have to become people who never feel impatient, annoyed or judgemental. (Hallelujah! I can stop waiting for everything, including me, to be perfect! Yippee!)

All we need to do is notice. Notice what we are feeling, notice what’s happening inside us, get curious about it and choose what happens next.

There is a simple four-step formula I teach in The Breakthrough Sessions to rapidly disarm negative emotions. The more you practise it, the more proficient you become. It's an easy way to have more of the good feelings that lift us and others up, while dealing more efficiently with the ones that can come along and knock us off track.

Emotional mastery has nothing to do with creating a life where everything goes our way perfectly, and everything to do with becoming someone who can still enjoy life even when it doesn’t.

We did end up finding somewhere right next to the arena and had a delicious meal, found our seats in plenty of time and had a fantastic evening. If I'm honest, I always knew we would. So grateful not to have let a bit of wind and rain and fully booked restaurants spoil the fun.

Making It Intentional

This week, when something doesn't go the way you'd hoped and you notice yourself feeling irritated, frustrated or disappointed, allow yourself to feel it. Don't judge yourself for feeling that way or try to push the feeling away.

Instead, sit with it. Notice what's happening inside you and gently ask yourself, 'What is this feeling here to teach me?'

Don't try to change it, fix it or make it go away. Just be curious about what comes up.

Sometimes, simply allowing ourselves to feel what we're feeling, without judgement or resistance, is where the learning begins.

Your Next Step

Imagine how different life could feel if you weren't so easily thrown off course by circumstances, other people's behaviour or your own expectations.

My Breakthrough Sessions are four personalised coaching sessions over six to eight weeks, designed to help you recognise and move beyond the patterns that have been holding you back.

Together, we'll work on developing greater self-awareness, emotional mastery and self-trust, so you can navigate life's challenges with more confidence and clarity, make decisions without endlessly second-guessing yourself, and stop allowing old patterns and reactions to dictate your choices.

Because you can't always choose what life throws at you. But you can learn to choose how you respond.