Dr Demartini shares how to transform what you PERCEIVE to be a setback into a catalyst for GROWTH.
Did you know that there is ONE question you can ask yourself to help you transform ANY setback into a comeback? I am sure that, like every other person on this planet, you have experienced something that you perceived as a setback.
Perhaps your setback involved your grades at school, not getting into the college or university of your choice, or possibly your setback was a relationship that did not turn out to be what you had hoped, or maybe even a lack of financial or business achievement that you had anticipated or planned for.
Perhaps you chose to work through these setbacks by trying again or working harder. Maybe you began blaming others for the role you perceived they played in your setback. There might even be a story that you are running in your head about how others have it “easier” than you, less setbacks than you. Or perhaps you feel that you may as well give up because after experiencing yet another setback, you now feel that you never seem to catch a break.
I’d like to give you an alternative view to dealing with setbacks today – something tangible that you would be wise to consider using every time you face something you perceive as a setback. I am certain that it will assist you in transforming these setbacks into comebacks.
There are only three things that you have control of in life: your perceptions, your decisions, and your actions.
Not only do you have control of these three things, but you can also change them:
So, while you may not have control over what has happened on the outside, you do have control of your perceptions and decisions on the inside, and of the resulting actions that follow.
As a result, you are not ever a victim of your history but instead a master of your destiny.
No matter what setback happens to you, you have the ability to change how it is in your mind.
I teach a course called the Breakthrough Experience and have seen people come in with all kinds of situations that they perceive to be setbacks.
One of the things I do is give them a new set of questions to ask, so they:
If something happens that you see as a setback, you are choosing to see the downsides and not the upsides.
It would be wise to ask yourself: “What are the upsides to this setback happening?” or “What would be the downsides if this setback hadn’t happened?”
For example, “What would be the downside if my parents had stayed married when I was younger?” or “What was the upside of my parent’s divorce when I was younger?”
Both questions will assist you in getting to the point where you are balanced in your thinking and grateful for what you had previously perceived as being a setback.
I am not promoting positive thinking but balanced thinking
When you can find the downsides to the things or fantasies that you are infatuated with, you can release the distress, have the setback dissolve, and balance your thinking. A depressive setback is often a result of a comparison of your current reality to a fantasy you’re holding on to about how it could or should’ve been.
Let me give you an example. Let us say that you become infatuated with a woman who then leaves you. Instead of focusing on all the ways she was “perfect”, imagine that you then began to look at all the downsides to either her or to your relationship with her until you are no longer infatuated but instead neutral and balanced. As a result, you will tend not to be resentful or unhappy, nor will you tend to give the relationship valuable real estate in your mind.
So, it is not about positive thinking but instead about bringing your thinking back into balance:
Balancing out the equation is what liberates you.
Anything that you are infatuated with occupies space and time in your mind and runs you, so you need to see the downsides to set you free. Anything you resent where you see downsides without upsides (setbacks without opportunity), also occupies your mind and runs you and here you need to see the upsides to set you free. It all depends on what the original setback is.
If you’ve lost someone that you are infatuated with, you may need to see the downside of the individual that you are attached to and the upside of them being gone.
If you are resentful of somebody, you may need to see the upside of why they are coming around you and the drawback if they were to go away. If you take those two sides and balance out the equation, there will be nothing there except an event that you’re now grateful for.
In other words, a perfectly balanced mind is more objective and becomes grateful.
Adaptability comes from a balanced mind.
You’re not adaptable if you are highly infatuated with something because you fear the loss of it.
You’re not highly adaptable if you are resentful of something and fear the gain of it.
You’re likely to only be set free when you have a balanced mind and neutralize your seeking or avoiding.
In the Breakthrough Experience, I teach the Demartini Method which is a series of questions that equilibrate the mind and liberate you from the bondage and baggage of emotions that weigh you down, which you label “setbacks”. In this way, you’re likely to be free, resilient and adaptable to whatever is happening.
If you have a perfectly balanced mind and something has been taken from you or you experience a setback, you’re likely not to feel devastated or stressed, but free.
A perfectly neutral mind is what liberates people from the stresses and the setbacks. Or, as I like to put it, a setback is nothing but an imbalanced mind.
Sometimes, the setbacks we have in life are not even setbacks but comparisons of fantasies that we are addicted to.
If you hold onto a fantasy about how life is supposed to be, then what it is may tend to feel like a setback or challenge.
It is for this reason that I’m a firm believer in balancing out the mind.
Once you balance your mind, you are likely not to even see a setback, only an opportunity.
You will tend to find the hidden order in your apparent chaos, and actually be grateful that a setback has happened.
I often say that anything you are not grateful for, somehow you have a skewed view of. If you balance out your mind, you are likely to experience an abundance of gratitude.
Again, a perfectly balanced mind is grateful.
When someone sees the balanced hidden order, they will not even perceive a “problem or setback”. They only thought they had a problem, when they imbalanced their thinking and perception.
By asking the question: what’s the upside if you are down, and what’s the downside if you are up, balances it out and liberates you, and then you tend to realize there is nothing there except “thank you”.
No matter what is going on in your life, a master is able to turn whatever is happening into an opportunity.
It is just about asking the right questions because intuitively balanced questions help you see unconscious information. The second you change your perception, your decisions of what to do with it change, and your actions change.
Then, if you choose prioritized actions that are inspired and that are according to your highest value, you’re likely to have the most resilience.
“How is whatever I’m experiencing right now helping me fulfill:
If you ask that question – no matter what’s going on – you might be surprised that you’re able to see things as being “on the way” instead of “in the way”.
You may not see it at first, but if you hold yourself accountable to look and discover what that is, you will tend to realize that this thing that you perceive to be a setback was not actually a setback but an opportunity.
When you’re living in alignment with your highest values, you’re more objective and embrace both challenge and support in your pursuit of what you feel is your purpose in life, you’re likely to have way more resilience and no longer perceive challenges as “setbacks”.
As a result, you will tend to be more adaptable and flexible, and no longer see gains or losses. Instead, you’re likely to live in a world of transformation.
Many of the greatest names in history once faced enormous setbacks – challenges that they later transformed into memorable COMEBACKS .
The many so-called setbacks or challenges that you may be facing are actually great opportunities for learning.
The next time you face something you perceive to be a setback, try asking yourself, “How specifically is whatever is happening in my life helping me fulfil my highest values or what I perceive to be most important or my current life mission?” The reason for this is that any time you link situations and setbacks to your highest values, you increase your adaptability, resilience and creative inspiration.
In this way, you will tend to see challenging events or situations as FEEDBACKs instead of setbacks – feedbacks being when you can say “thank you” for what is happening; and setbacks are being when you can’t.
I have had many events in my life that I thought were challenging or could be seen as a setback. One that comes to mind occurred about 38 years ago when my first accountant misclassified a $70,000 loan that I got from a bank as taxable income, which meant that the errored tax form showed I needed to pay tax on borrowed money that I did not pay. I was understandably frustrated with the setback when I later became audited over the oversight, and the auditor found that the IRS actually owed me $17,000! It was also when I made the decision to get my financial house more in order, and to hire a new accountant who has been with me ever since.
By looking at the upside of a challenging situation or setback, I was able to balance my thinking and dissolve my perception of a financial setback. Instead, I was able to see it as feedback, and say “thank you” for the lessons I learned that helped me become more financially aware.
It would be wise to take a moment or two to think about it this way:
If you have a skewed view and are subjectively biased in your perception, you are likely to have more impulsive fantasies, which are the cause of many of those nightmare-like setbacks.
Much of the time, those “setbacks” are due to unrealistic fantasies where you compare what IS happening to what you THINK should be happening.
However, if you ask, “How specifically is whatever is happening in my life helping me fulfill my highest values and what is truly most important?” you will be more likely to see the situation as feedback instead of a setback, and to say “thank you” for the resulting lessons and learning.
Anything you can’t say “thank you” for becomes subconsciously stored baggage and friction, and anything you can say “thank you” for is fuel.
I watched a recent interview with Lance Armstrong where he said that being stripped of his Tour de France titles was one of the greatest setbacks that had ever happened in his life. What he once perceived to be something he wasn’t sure he could ever recover from actually freed him from a distorted view of life and of himself. He then went on to talk about how grounded and focused he is now, and how his attention is more on helping other people instead of just thinking about himself.
He also described those setbacks as a “gift” and a “blessing”.
When you see the blessings in whatever is going on in your life, or do the work to balance your mind, things around you change and they fuel opportunity.
I am certain that you can change the world within and around you by changing your PERCEPTION of the world around you.
For example, I had a wonderful woman tell me that my signature seminar program, the Breakthrough Experience changed her relationship with her family – her mom, daughter, and husband.
She said, “I had expectations based on my own values that I was projecting onto the world, particularly my family members and I was expecting the world to live in my highest values. I was creating my setbacks and my anger and my frustrations over and over again, because no one was ever living up to my expectations. Now that I have calmed that down, started seeing people for who they are, and expecting them to live according to their OWN highest values instead of MINE, I realized that all the things that I thought were setbacks are actually normal behaviors. The only thing that changed were my perceptions and expectations of others!”
Many setbacks are the result of false, or unrealistic expectations.
These could include:
Let us imagine that you’re infatuated with someone. In doing so, you are likely to exaggerate them and minimize you, while also trying to live in their highest values. It’s almost impossible to sustain and you’re likely to start resenting them because you want your own true life back. However, because you’re infatuated with them, you also fear the loss of them, or their rejection, as well as the fantasy of how it was “supposed to” work out.
When you balance your thinking and find the upsides to the downsides of the relationship ending, you may realize that parting ways will set you free to live in your own true highest values, be yourself and get back on top of your game in the world.
In that way, the end of the relationship can be perceived as being a gift instead of a setback, and something you are actually grateful for as a chapter in your book of life.
Many setbacks can be the result of not thinking ahead.
When you live in accordance with your highest values and live congruently, you have the highest probability of awakening your brain’s Executive Center. This is where you activate your foresight, think things out in advance, consider potential downsides and strategize how you can prepare for and mitigate any obstacles or setbacks.
The biggest difference between people who are thinking from foresight versus people living from hindsight, is that hindsight is way less efficient and involves learning through trial and error.
People who have foresight are likely to prepare in advance and think about what could go wrong and prepare for it. They therefore tend to have a lot less distress and be more balanced in their orientation. In fact, foresight implies balance and objectivity.
So, if you go through and think about the worst-case scenarios or setbacks that can occur and prepare for them in advance, you decrease the probability of having those setbacks and are actually prepared for them should they occur. In that way you are able to act more than react.
That is the key difference between setting a goal that is really an objective or setting up a fantasy that is not. So, setbacks are our feedbacks in that respect. They are letting us know we could polish our goals and transform them from fantasies with unrealistic expectations into truly thought through objectives.
In conclusion, it would be wise to:
Any opinions, views and beliefs represented in this article are personal and belong solely to the author/s and do not necessarily reflect the opinion, views and beliefs of the organisation and employees of New Image™ International
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