By Dr. Daneen SkubeTribune Content Agency
Q. I spend a lot of time at work bitching in my head about the “way things are.” I’m in my early 30s and disillusioned about all the ideals I started with in my career. The rules I played by in my 20s didn’t get me where I want to go. Now I’m trying to reformat my expectations. Do you have any tips on how to deal with the fact that reality bites and how to be effective in situations you don’t like?
A. When reality bites, it’s mostly because we’re busy having an argument and trying to pretend the light at the end of a tunnel isn’t a freight train. When we can accept that reality is not a democracy, we can adapt and be effective with things as they really are.
Many of the world’s spiritual traditions have versions of “accepting God’s will.” One-liners like, “When God closes a door, he opens a window” abound in most religions.
Whether we believe in God or not, we can use this thinking to improve our effectiveness and peace of mind. Anytime we’re fighting against what we don’t like, we’re unable to use what’s going on to help us get where we want to go.
On a practical business level, look at the challenge businesses face every day marketing their products to a changing world. Many changes threaten the core product line of a business, but if marketing staff spend all their time bemoaning the changes, the company could go out of business.
Companies that thrive look at these same tough realities and see how to use the changes to reinvent their products and create profitable niches. The difference between failing and thriving companies is simply how they work with reality.
In the last few years, quantum physicists have discovered that there appears to be an intelligent field of energy infusing and surrounding all physical things. Some researchers, like scientist and scholar Greg Braden, hypothesize that each of us is having a conversation we’re unaware of with this invisible energy.
Entertaining the concept that each of us is interacting with some intelligent field that shapes our personal world raises some intriguing questions. If you want to play with this idea, keep a journal for a week and notice the following: bumper stickers you see, mechanical items that break, good fortune or bad luck that comes your way, and opportunities or disappointments that appear out of the blue.
It’s instructive to see that in the randomness, there are messages to help us grow up.
The last word(s)
Q: There are times I believe it would be better to say nothing. Your column, however, always focuses on what to say. Are there moments when silence conveys more than words?
A: Yes. Silence is a complete sentence.
Daneen Skube, Ph.D., executive coach, trainer, therapist and speaker, also appears as the FOX Channel’s “Workplace Guru” each Monday morning. She’s the author of “Interpersonal Edge: Breakthrough Tools for Talking to Anyone, Anywhere, About Anything” (Hay House, 2006). You can contact Dr. Skube at www.interpersonaledge.com or 1420 NW Gilman Blvd., #2845, Issaquah, WA 98027. Sorry, no personal replies.
(c) 2015 INTERPERSONAL EDGE
DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.
This column was printed in the May 17, 2015 – May 30, 2015 edition.
