Life is never one-sided. The Chinese symbol of yin and yang illustrates the two opposites of life. While most people learned to deal with the positives, the negatives seems to be much more difficult to handle. But are they really?
Negatives like fear, pain, anger, jealousy, grief, loneliness, death, winter, sickness . . . The list goes on. Some would go even as far as running away from them. Avoiding them like the plaques.
Unfortunately, these is no way around it. The negative experiences are real parts of life. They make our life whole. No chance of avoiding or outrunning them much as one tries. A better approach perhaps is to embrace them.
Take fear for an exmaple. Embrace it means to deal with one’s fear head on. Recognize and accept the fear as normal. Develop a mitigating strategy like verbalizing, assessing, and coping:
- Is the fear real or rational?
- What‘s the worst could happen?
- What’s within my control?
- What can I do to prepare for it?
What‘re the negatives in your life?
Running with Buddha 