Relax into the Valley

We live in an up-and-down, ebb-and-flow universe, yet we would much rather flow than ebb. It took me almost a year to accept the fact that when we are struggling in the down sides, we are actually in the troughs between the peaks of life. Surviving life's low points is a kind of a skill. Recently I read an article that suggests how to gain this skill.

We all have experienced vertiginous and unsupported feeling of everything going wrong at once. Apart from our exaggeration of the whole situation, there is a true fact behind it. Ruined plans and unfulfilled expectations remind us that we have little control over most situations. Here is the place that we resist every downturn - from a demotion to a breakup as if it were death itself - In fact we are either at denial stage to pretend things won't go wrong or we clutch at straws.

But the moment that we accept that what is happening is happening, we actually have passed the first step of life crisis successfully. A good simulation of the situation is thinking of a going into a valley. Do what you did like a small kid on the big shiny playground slide:

Let go and ride it down!

Source: From the September 2010 issue of O, The Oprah Magazine