An Important Life Skill

This month marks the fifth broadcast of the Live Sessions online talk show I have been co-hosting with my dear friend Sophie. She is a graphic designer/artist who is of British descent and currently living in a rural area of France.

Sophie and I along with our recently added third co-host Carly, a Clinical Psychologist of Aboriginal descent and in her words, living in Oklahoma; the heart of Cherokee country USA.

Technology has allowed the three of us who are in various stages of our gender expression, to come together along with thousands of others online who watch the show, in support of the freedom for gender different expression across our tiny blue planet.

I have been contributing articles of support for several gender different websites for over two decades as I learn to navigate this journey of my own gender expression adventure, and I am reminded of one Life Skill that just might improve the quality of your life because this point has nothing to do with being gender different; it is simply has to do with living your own best life. The point?

Life has problems and challenges, but misery and suffering are choices.

Yes, life has problems and challenges, this we cannot escape, but what do I mean that misery and suffering are choices?

It has been said that no matter what events are taking place on our journey of life, it is not the event that causes our misery and suffering, it is our thoughts and opinions of the event, that cause our misery and suffering.

This is the difference between what is fact, and what is opinion.

While there may be facts resulting from events of our lives, it is our opinion or how we see them that stirs up the suffering we experience. We create our own misery and suffering by how we view the events of our lives. There have recently been a few challenges on our journey that could easily have put us onto a state of suffering and misery if we allowed it.

My amazing wife recently had a wreck in her jeep and while it is fact that the jeep is no longer mobile, we have both chosen to focus on the gratitude we, and many friends who have contacted us feel, that she is still alive and physically unbroken from the event thanks to many passersby who stopped and helped her. The jeep is wrecked but my wife is still amazing with a positive, joyful outlook on life!

While it is fact that SaskPower has admittedly not read our power meter since 2018 and served us with a massive several thousand-dollar bill; however, we have chosen to focus on the gratitude we feel for having heat and light in our little rural home that has worked well and consistently over the past few decades, even while many surrounding communities experienced power outage during the recent storm, our lights and heat stayed on here at Hawarden.

It is fact that many people have not, and do not view gender different expression as acceptable on our world, but Sophie, Carly and I focus our talk show on the gratitude we feel to everyone who has accepted and even supported the freedoms that we currently experience and continue to expand on.

Yes, life has problems and challenges, but it is how we choose to look at them, how we choose to feel about them and what we say about them to our friends that creates our emotional experience of them.

We always have the choice to dwell on every aspect we call negative in every event; what isn’t working, or what didn’t work, or we can also choose to look for the good that has come from the event which in ways, might improve the situations moving forward in ways yet unseen to us.

We will have other vehicles to drive in time; the power bill is being figured out and we will have a new method of assessing our usage within a month’s time, and the world is growing into the “live and let live” mind set with only a few stragglers clinging to outdated, archaic beliefs and judgements.

This week, no matter what events are taking place in your life, you have the power to decide how you are going to think, feel and act about them.

You alone decide what you will think, feel and do

regardless of what is going on around you.

Yes, life has problems and challenges, but practicing the Life Skill of choosing to intentionally and consciously look for the good in every situation will relieve you of the misery and suffering.

This will improve not only your own life, but also the lives of everyone who is watching you, my friends.

Thank you for reading TGForum and thank you for being exactly who you are!

Namaste’

Char

Tags: featured, opinion, Transgender

Category: Transgender Body & Soul, Transgender Opinion