How I feel is based on the MEANING I associate with the situation. I create the meaning. Nothing in life has any meaning, except the meaning I give to it. The label we put on our experience, becomes our experience, and we do the labeling.

The MEANING I give it determines how I feel, how I FEEL determines what I do, and what I DO shapes my DESTINY. Assign a meaning to the situation that will empower you, instead of one that dis-empowers you. For example: Some people freeze to death in winter, but some people go skiing, or build snowmen…

Some people assign a meaning of abuse to someone beating them. I’ve had instances where some women feel it is because a man loves them that he beats them.

These meanings are derived mainly from an individual’s experience in life, where they were at a stage where they had no control of the situation and that experience was all they knew. Take for example a little girl who have been abused since she was a baby; this was all she knew, and she really believed this was a “normal” part of life. So much so, that at the age of 4 years, when her abuser did not turn up for his nightly molestation of the child, she went looking for him because she thought he had forgotten her. It was not until the child grew up and realized this was wrong – that she realized the meaning she had given to this behavior was entirely wrong!

How did she survive this history of disgusting act that began her introduction into this world? She had to change the meaning of her experience. This was NOT an easy task, and because of the severity of the behavior – it took years of therapy to manage this.

Now – many of the meanings we give to our experiences are not as life-changing as this example. However, we do have the power to choose the meanings we give to our experiences. This allows us to operate from an area of strength – rather than weakness. It allows us to have a sense of empowerment which allows us to move forward and upward out of the challenges of life that can bind us and keep us in bondage.

It is only when we fail to use our power to choose what a particular experience means – that we are “out for the count” – even before the fight begins!

After we choose an empowering  meaning we MUST also choose to change our state. The state we are in at any particular moment, powerfully impacts the meaning we associate to something.  If we change the meaning, but fail to change our state – we are still not free of the bondage the negative meaning had over us. You change your state by doing something fun – something that makes you happy. Go to the spa; dance like no one is watching, sing like no one is listening; make a fool of yourself – after all, it’s better that being a fool for something or someone else!

Choose your meaning. It is a powerful stance to take.

Until next time; “FEEL the FEAR and DO it anyway!”