Life can have a profound way of testing our ability to learn and react to whatever gets thrown our way. Challenges that we encounter in life can be big or small but there is always a lesson behind it. How do you react to those curveballs that get thrown at you? This can be anything that is displeasing to you and maybe it is just one challenge that you encounter, or it can be many challenges at once. Traffic, longer hours at work due to projects, or a dinner that your wife or husband made for you that you do not like. This simply depends on your environment. If any of those three are something you can relate to, how do you react to that? Do you subconsciously react negatively? Maybe start to get anxious or stressed due to the situation. Traffic is something I can relate to greatly because of my environment. Driving every day to school on a stressful highway was a tough experience for me. This highway I am referring to is not the greatest due to never ending construction and the significant amount of accidents that occur day to day. Looking back on that experience, I made that situation harder than it had to be for myself. Traffic was not the reason why I was anxious, the way I reacted to it was the reason behind the anxiety. I would be so negative due to fact that I had to sit in traffic however I was never fully aware of that. I would get so worried knowing that my GPS was giving me an estimated time arrival to school which was later than my class time. The brain and the mind are both powerful. We all think differently that is what makes each one of us unique. How we choose to react to these situations are key, awareness is key, positivity is key, living in the here and now is key. Every experience we encounter helps us grow. A lot of times we might let our mind go into overload with all these thoughts and emotions from the past or the future. If we are aware that we are reacting negatively or getting stressed or anxious about tomorrow or next week, then we can react to it differently. Each one of us will be able to consciously say to ourselves to relax and live in the moment. Let’s all be present in every second of the day and only that day. Let’s make the best of every situation and react to those situations in a positive way. Anyone who can relate to the displeasing thought of traffic, let’s turn up the sound to our favorite song and sing to the top of our lungs with no worries about anything we simply cannot control.

Marty and Laura, Life Circles