The GROMP, a story about building mental resilience, especially when we perceive times as tough!
The strategy of the GROMP has been tried and tested for thousands of years, through eastern traditions and ancient wisdom passed down through the ages but for whatever reason has become inaccessible to the average person today as we grapple with the challenges that this CO-vid pandemic has brought out for us.
A heightening of feelings and senses and an overwhelming sense of loss and despair fueled by a media that is renowned to thrive on bad news, and amplified even more so by social media and the need for each of us to be the bearer of bad news.
A candle in a dark room spreads light. And we all can act as that candle and spread light.
The GROMP does.
The GrOmP wakes up every morning expressing GRATITUDE. Even before his / her eyes are open the GrOmP acknowledges the miracle of the breath that energises every cell in the body, oxygenates our blood that gives us our vitality allowing us to enjoy the world around us.
This breath and blood flow that allows us to move our bodies and streeeetch before settling down to connect to our breath in a mindful way. A pause, an opportunity to touch on what is going on within, before engaging with what is happening on the outside.
The pause that gives us the opportunity to reflect before we react to what is going on. And the opportunity to connect to our breath our anchor that we can return to at any point of time in our day.
The pause that sets the tone for the day that allows us to focus on what we can control.
Is the narrative going around my head serving me well?
Or perhaps I can choose a different path allowing for a different outcome.
A beautiful story adapted from Dan Yashinsky the Canadian Storyteller who tells of the Champion sharpshooter who happened to be King of the village riding on his horse home after winning another competition and comes across 100 targets each with a bullseye.
Intrigued, he asks to see the person who has succeeded in this amazing achievement.
And out comes this young girl, claiming it was her.
The King admits to never having achieved anything like this and asks the girl to be his teacher.
She agrees and proceeds to tell the king - I shoot the arrows first and then paint the targets around.
We can choose where our arrows should go. What we focus on, is where our minds will go.
And this becomes our narrative. As the GrOmP says: REFRAME.
There is so much beauty in the world all around us. The miracles of the flowers, and the mountains and the oceans down below.
The miracles of modern technology that bring us closer together.
And the miracles of modern medicine help to keep us and those around us safer.
In Wayne Dyers book, ‘There is a spiritual solution to every problem’, he quotes Anthony de Mello
‘The Way to Love’
Compare the serene and simple splendor of a rose in bloom with the tensions and restlessness of your life. The rose has a gift that you lack; It is perfectly content to be itself. It has not been programmed from birth, as you have been, to be dissatisfied with itself, so it has not the slightest urge to be anything other than it is. That is why it possesses the artless grace and absence of inner conflict that among humans is only found in little children and mystics.
Wayne Dyer continues to write about how hope is a feeling of optimism knowing that things will not remain the same and how good times will follow.
And they will. Nothing stays the same. It is one of the only certainties of life.
But more than that we can create our reality now. Moment to moment. Day by day.
When a negative thought arises for the GrOmP, the GrOmP goes back to the breath awareness from the start of the day. And greets that negative thought with a SMILE as if greeting a long lost friend - without any anger or resistance. And then gracefully lets that thought go.
In that way The GrOmP stops the vortex of negativity and creates a new neural pathway - one that is positive. Knowing that one positive thought also leads to the next.
And then The GrOmP regards all those around with an ‘A’, as so beautifully explained by Benjamin Zander in the Art of Possibility. And the positive effect that has on self and others.
And as the circles ripple outward from your arrow, try doing a Random Act of Lovingkindness - the smallest gesture will help uplift another person. Firstly, by seeing them and recognising them and recognising that we are all connected and not alone in the world.
We are connected to each other. And held here on Earth by mother nature with all her beauty around us.
Grateful for the Gravity that keeps us grounded but forgotten when our minds wander. As minds do!
Pause. Breathe.
Like the GrOmP learn the art of MINDFULNESS, present moment to moment awareness and choose to engage with the world around in a way that serves you best and those around you. Picking yourself up and then seeing the positive effect it brings to those around you.
Now Being the Lighthouse and not the Lifeboat.
Following this formula will allow for a new PERSPECTIVE and it is this perspective that creates the GrOmP.
You too can choose to be The GrOmP.
Powerful, capable and able to get through this.