{"id":1103,"date":"2012-10-01T01:00:29","date_gmt":"2012-10-01T01:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/?p=1103"},"modified":"2012-10-17T09:56:02","modified_gmt":"2012-10-17T13:56:02","slug":"losing-hope-of-ever-finding-peace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/?p=1103","title":{"rendered":"Losing hope of ever finding peace"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>I&#8217;m 53 and I&#8217;m losing hope of ever finding peace in my life. It seems it has been nothing but a string of challenges, defeats, and losses since I was 25. After more than a quarter century of this, I am done. I don&#8217;t understand why my life has been life this. What have I done wrong? I try to follow all of the &#8220;teachings&#8221; (affirmations, medication, visualization, etc.), but it seems to get me nowhere. I need help, and a reason to even bother trying. &#8212; LJ, Denver, Colorado<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Dear L.J&#8230;.There is likely nothing I can say that will make all of these feelings go away over night, but I am going to suggest a starting point that worked for me&#8230;change your way of viewing the events of your life.\u00a0 They are, as much as they may seem to the contrary, not defeats and losses!<\/p>\n<p>Might there be another you could view these \u201cchallenges\u201d?\u00a0 Perhaps as \u201copportunities\u201d?\u00a0 Perhaps as things to be grateful for?\u00a0 I get, L.J., that the last thing one usually feels in the middle of the drama of life is grateful, but taking a moment to see if there is some way any situation could be looked at through the eyes of gratitude does a couple of things for me&#8230;it makes me stop, in the moment, and stop participating in the drama, and it gives me the opportunity (there\u2019s that word!) to decide how I feel about what is going on.\u00a0 Not what other people think about it, not what I am told I should think about it, but how I think about the event.\u00a0 Usually I become a little more clear about who I wish to be from that point forward.<\/p>\n<p>There is no formula, L.J, no \u201cteaching\u201d that will be the magic bullet, until you trust what you already know&#8230;that you have done nothing wrong.\u00a0 I believe, as CWG states, that there are no mistakes, darling one.\u00a0 No right or wrong.\u00a0 Only what works and what doesn\u2019t work.\u00a0 Knowing what hasn\u2019t worked in our lives is the only way to know what does&#8230;the light and dark, yin\/yang of things you know.\u00a0 When you know better, you do better.\u00a0 \u201cKnowing better\u201d isn\u2019t a solo journey of the mind, it must be accompanied on the path with body and soul.<\/p>\n<p>So, I would ask you to look at your life through the lens of what did work.\u00a0 You are obviously on a spiritual path or you would not be in this space today.\u00a0 Is it possible that you would not be on this journey if you hadn\u2019t experienced your life just as it unfolded?\u00a0 Can you now consider that you might be able to change your mind about things going forward?\u00a0 I hope so, because it has been my experience that when I see the joy in the past, and I am grateful for all that is my now&#8230;my future unfolds in astonishing ways!\u00a0 Even in the middle of what others might see as horrible, I am calm, and, yes, happy with exactly where I am.\u00a0 (Well, I can\u2019t lie!\u00a0 I am <em>usually <\/em>calm, etc.!\u00a0 Believe me, I do still have my moments, but they are far fewer.)<\/p>\n<p>If, L.J., you would like to have more of a discussion about this, with more people than just me, see the information below.<\/p>\n<p>Therese<\/p>\n<p><em>(Therese Wilson is the administrator of the global website at <\/em>www.ChangingChange.net<em>, which offers spiritual assistance from a team of Spiritual Helpers responding to every post from readers within 24 hours or less, and offering insight, suggestions, and companionship during moments of unbidden, unexpected, unwelcome change on the journey of life. \u00a0She may be contacted at\u00a0<\/em><a href=\"mailto:Therese@TheGlobalConversation.com\">Therese@TheGlobalConversation.com<\/a>.)<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>(If you would like a question considered for publication, please submit your request to:\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a title=\"Advice@TheGlobalConversation.com\" href=\"mailto:Advice@theglobalconversation.com\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong><em>Advice@TheGlobalConversation.com<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/span><strong><em>, where our team is waiting to hear from you.)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m 53 and I&#8217;m losing hope of ever finding peace in my life. It seems it has been nothing but a string of challenges, defeats, and losses since I was 25. After more than a quarter century of this, I am done. I don&#8217;t understand why my life has been life this. What have I [&hellip;]<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[171],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-advice"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1103"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1103\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6951,"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1103\/revisions\/6951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}