“When we really desire a certain outcome, we cling to the idea of how we think it should work out in our mind. We cling so tightly to the idea of what we want, that we leave no wiggle room for any other possible outcome; and, when things don’t pan out exactly as we want them to, we can become disappointed, depressed, dejected, or down right angry. When other people are added to the mix, with their ideas and outcomes that they are clinging to, just as passionately as we are attached to our own outcomes, things can get pretty ugly really quickly!”

That was an excerpt from one of my Hunting Happiness articles last December, and as I read it now it still rings true in certain aspects of my life. The lessons we are meant to learn seem to circle back around to us if we haven’t learned them, don’t they? Or, maybe, we have learned to apply a certain lesson to one aspect of our lives but we can’t quite use that same approach to another.

Maybe we are really good at loosening our grip with our work but not in our relationships with our spouses or children. Or maybe vice-versa, life at home is easy breezy but maybe we have freak out moments when things don’t go exactly as planned in our work.

This week I encourage you to ask yourself what is the lesson that seems to present itself to you time and time again, and then contemplate how you can learn from it each and every time it comes up. What thing always seems to show up in your circumstances and instead of getting angry about it or judging it ask yourself what you can learn from it!

When those lessons come along, instead of clinging to the outcome of how you think it should work itself out, stay open to creative possibilities for resolve that may not exist in the scope of your control. Surrender the outcome, take a deep breath, look for the lesson, and exhale. Take it all one day at a time, and know (in the word’s of my dear teacher Gabrielle Bernstein) that “the Universe has your back.”