When the Dali Lama was asked to give some thoughts about 2009, one of the things he said was, “Not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.” In the book, “Believe in what you do” by Glenn Van Ekeren, the author tells a story about this very point. The story is about a family from Scotland. Their dream was to take a holiday to the United States on an ocean liner. They spent years saving money for their dream holiday and finally could book their tickets for their trip. Seven days before they were to depart, the youngest son was bitten by a dog. The boy was quarantined for 14 days and the family’s holiday had to be cancelled. The father shed many tears of disappointment and cursed both his son and God for their misfortune. Five days later, the tragic news spread throughout Scotland – the Titanic had sunk. When the father heard the news, he hugged his son and thanked him for saving the family. In this case, a tragedy was turned into a blessing.
So often in life we experience tragedies or suffering and fail to move past them. We sit with the pain and spend an enormous amount of time and energy reliving the trauma, playing it over and over again in our minds. One is so engrossed in the pain that we rarely look for or find the blessing in the suffering.
There are many schools of thought on how to accept and move past trauma in our lives. Many therapists and counselors recommend writing about the incident that has caused your trauma. If it is a person that has aggrieved you, write and tell them how you feel about the situation and then tell them in the letter that you forgive them. One then burns the letter to symbolize letting go and closure. Others say you should envisage your traumatic experience captured inside a huge silver balloon. You then picture yourself letting go the silver balloon. In your minds eye, you watch the silver balloon float away into the distance. The floating away of the silver balloon symbolizes the letting go of the trauma in order for healing to take place.
A few years ago, I attended one of The More to Life foundation workshops. They taught many techniques on how to move past stress and trauma in one’s life. There was one particular technique that I liked. It involved using the mind and the physical body. Firstly, the person is to have the situation or issue in their mind. They then say, “I refuse to accept this situation,” at the same time physically trying to push the situation or issue (in their minds eye) away with their arms and hands. The more physical effort and vocal the intention, the more powerful the exercise can be. Once this has been repeated a few times, the person feels emotionally and physically tired. This symbolizes surrender. The person then sits very quietly and says repeatedly, “I accept this situation.” By “accepting” the situation it allows the person to get past the emotions and start to look at ways of dealing with the situation or issue.
In Korea they have a beautiful everyday expression, “Gamsa-hapnida.” (pronounced gum-sa ham-nida) It simply means, thank you. I have found this everyday expression to be extremely useful to me. In Neuro-Linguistic Psychology (NLP), we have a saying that says, “There is no failure only learning.” Whenever I encounter a situation or person that causes me trauma or stress, I envision saying in my minds eye, “Gamsa-hapnida” to that person for bringing that situation or issue to my attention. The more emotionally charged the situation or event is, the more times I repeat Gamsa-hapnida. Doing this allows me to remove the judgment from the situation or person, and thus the emotion. I’m now able to look at the learning without the emotion. In other words, seeing the blessing in the suffering
As an anonymous author once wrote, “I thank everyone that has caused me to suffer, without you I would have no reason to express myself.”
Gamsa-hapnida!
