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Issue No: 21Date: August 4, 2008Published: Bi-WeeklyPublisher: Jimmy Roos
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The Prosperity Times Newsletter
In This Week's Issue:
1. Learning Life's Lessons Through Adversity
2. Universal Secrets of Turning Adversity Into Possibilities
3. Favorite Quote
4. Subscriber Special Offer
5. Tell A Friend
Hi everyone.
Today's newsletter focuses on adversity. This topic has special meaning for me as my computer has packed up and is currently in the repair shop. I'm using my laptop to write you this issue.
You will also find that I have packed two articles into this issue instead of the customary one. It is because I feel that both articles share some special insights that we can all appreciate.
I hope you enjoy it.
1. Learning Life's Lessons Through Adversity
Steve BrunkhorstAdversities are a part of living, and we choose the way we react to each adversity in our lives. I would be the last to deny that adversities can be exceedingly difficult. Many times they will be senseless, unfair, painful, and beyond our control to prevent. However, they come into our lives for a reason. We can choose to learn valuable lessons from each adversity we encounter.
Learning Valuable Life Lessons
Marvin J. Ashton (1915-1994) said, "Adversity will surface in every life. How we meet it makes the difference."
Tough times, events, and circumstances can teach us much about ourselves and other people. They bring us face to face with our honesty, integrity, sense of personal responsibility, and ways of dealing with life's blows.
Initially, we want to bury our hurt and grief deeply inside rather than experience painful emotions. However, before the pain and grief will subside, we must pick up the pieces. We must fully move through these feelings of discouragement, grief, and pain, allowing ourselves complete emotional expression before the pain will ease its hold.
In the process of allowing ourselves to feel our emotions completely, we learn valuable life lessons. We also discover how resilient and strong we are at any given point in our life. If we look closely at each adversity, we become wiser to life's ways, our ways, and people's ways. Each adversity we encounter can bring new insight into human nature.
As tough as life's lessons sometimes are, each holds the seed of an equal or greater blessing, a pathway to new growth as a human being. It is our responsibility to learn each lesson. Otherwise, we will be handed a more difficult scenario of the same lesson again. The lessons we are meant to learn will reappear until we learn them completely.
Discovering Blessings and Wisdom
The more difficult the adversity, the more valuable will be the lessons it offers to teach. By exercising faith in a Power greater than ourselves, we discover we are not alone in any adversity. We learn to see blessings appear—sometimes years later—that we would not have received had we not been handed tough times.
To find these blessings, we must expect them and watch for them to appear. To reap their benefits, we must believe that we deserve them and accept them with absolute faith when they are offered to us. If we do not accept them, they will often times not wait around for us to change our minds.
Ask yourself the following seven questions, and write down your answers:
In what ways have I dealt with adversity that were effective and ineffective?How have my ways of dealing with adversity affected other people and me?
Have I accepted responsibility for my life's circumstances and the times that my actions have resulted in adversity?
What have my adversities taught me about my honesty, integrity, sense of personal responsibility, and my faith in other people and myself?
What have my adversities taught me about human nature and how the actions of other people tend to influence how I react to their behaviors?
How can I react to adversity in a way that will better allow me to grow wiser, more resilient, and more loving?
What is my personal faith that brings me the greatest strength in times of adversity?
The Choice is Yours
Even when life becomes painfully unfair, you have a choice. You can choose to learn the most valuable of life's lessons now or later. You can reap the greatest of life's rewards by choosing to see adversities as God-given universities. You can accept the blessings they offer to you.
Questioning yourself about each adversity will teach you more about yourself and about human nature. It will help you to learn the life lessons that will bring the only true measure of success: inner growth and a more principle-centered life. You will experience a stronger faith in the possibilities of the future.
© Copyright 2005 by Steve Brunkhorst. Steve is a professional life success coach, motivational author, and the editor of Achieve! 60-Second Nuggets of Inspiration, a popular ezine bringing great stories, motivational nuggets, and inspiring thoughts to help you achieve more in your career and personal life. Get the next issue by visiting http://www.AchieveEzine.com.
2. Universal Secrets of Turning Adversity Into Possibilities
Stephen HopsonThe secret is this: Napoleon Hill once said "Every adversity carries within it the seed of equal or greater benefit."
If in the midst of great pain, discouragement or heartbreak you seek that seed and fertilize it, you will eventually overcome adversity and turn it into a university of possibilities.
Think about it. The universe is governed by laws. It is knowledge of these laws and using them to your advantage to achieve your dreams that will determine your life's path.
One of my favorite universal laws is the law of giving. This lends credence to the idea of asking others, "how may be of service to you?" When we give and expect nothing in return, the universal law of giving operates in a way that you get something in return. There is a constant exchange of energy between you and the universe. When you give, you get.
One word of caution. Universal laws are not meant to be manipulated. If you simply give to get, you cause the flow to stop. When you give with your heart and with no expectations, you will receive much more. What goes out must come back. Such is the dynamic energy that defines life.
Deepak Chopra said in his book "The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success" that in every seed is the promise of a thousand forests. But the seed must not be hoarded; it must give its intelligence to the fertile ground."
The same thing can be said of sharing our knowledge and talents with others so that they may benefit. Perhaps your knowledge and experience will help others shave some time off the learning curve.
Perhaps you have money to give away. Money is a form of energy. If you hoard it, it will not circulate for you. If you want to make more money, give away some of what you have now and watch your abundance grow!
The return is dependent on the amount you give from the heart without any strings attached. Give with joy. Give with faith. Give with confidence that you are not losing anything.
The universal law of giving also covers receiving. Be open to receiving as well as giving. It doesn't have to be anything materialistic. When someone pays you a compliment, thank that person from the bottom of your heart. If you're outside and the birds are singing, be thankful for the divine gift of hearing. Be in a grateful frame of mind and open to receiving gifts. It may not come in the form you expect but they are gifts nevertheless. Accept them graciously.
When you give and receive graciously and with gratitude, you allow the universe to keep the circulation flowing.
Food for thought: Where ever you walk today, give someone a gift. It could be a prayer, flower, a compliment. You could send an email to someone you've been mentoring with a valuable tip. Provide others with value - find a way to enrichen their lives. It could be a statement of confidence in them. It could be a quote you read in a book that would help someone at that moment. When you receive a gift, accept it with gratitude. Keep the cycle flowing.
Profoundly deaf since birth, Stephen Hopson is a former award-winning stockbroker turned motivational speaker, author and pilot. He works with organizations that are ready to explore and overcome adversity because no one is immune from it - adversity does not discriminate. His professional speaking services, Obstacle Illusions, include fun and passionate presentations, especially the story of how his fifth grade teacher forever changed his young life with THAT'S RIGHT STEPHEN! You can view his website at http://www.sjhopson.com Stephen also maintains a blog called "Adversity University" at http://adversityuniversity.blogspot.com/
3. This Week's Favorite Quotes
"You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you.
Walt Disney
"Adversity is like a strong wind. It tears away from us all but the things that cannot be torn, so that we see ourselves as we really are."
Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha
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