Falling

Have you ever had the rug pulled out from under you?

I certainly have. It's terrifying, isn't it? You're going along, living your life as you expected you would, looking into a future you've had planned out for some time when suddenly you get blind-sided. You find yourself tumbling forward into an abyss which seems bottomless. You reach out to catch something or someone, anything at all to stop the downward plunge, only to find that there is nothing in reach.

It is terrifying. But it's also a brilliant place to be.

When life takes you by surprise - delivers the unexpected - it's an opportunity for growth. Sometimes it might be a small thing like your car breaking down on a busy road on the way to work. This is a chance to practice patience. To see how resourceful you can be in a stressful situation, test your ability to solve the issue at hand, to be patient with the inconvenience, to accept that some things will be beyond your control.

Sometimes it's going to be significantly larger. Your partner of several years leaves you. Your employer makes you redundant. You're in a skiing accident which leaves both your legs in full casts.

Everything is unhinged and any plans or expectations you had for the future will suddenly be uncertain, or impossible. These situations can be upsetting, challenging and difficult but they are not without benefit.

Life will always have difficulties - this is an unarguable fact. How we choose to respond in the face of the unavoidable is entirely up to us.

When life takes us on unexpected and unplanned turns it's an opportunity to open up to more choices, to see things from a different perspective, or to change the way we think.

It's also a wonderful way to see our strengths. When we are challenged we get to see where we need to do more work, but we can also see where we are incredibly strong, resilient or skilled.

The choice of how we respond is always ours. We can take our circumstances in stride or we can wallow. Personally, wallowing just makes me feel a bit gross. I might have a few sympathetic shoulder pats from the occasional person who will listen to me whinge, but int he long term I won't feel any better and will probably end up making myself feel worse in the long run than I did initially.

I've come to love falling. Not that I go looking for adversity but I'm not afraid to take a step into the unknown. That would be why I decided to move to London nearly three years ago. I didn't have a set idea of what would happen but I was willing to find out. Believe me, it has been an incredible adventure and one I wouldn't change for the world.

Ready to take the leap yourself? www.CreativeLifeCoachLondon.com