Episode Details

While the concept of pivoting, turning in a different direction, is the new spin on how to address a life challenge, but when faced with catastrophic challenges we can’t pivot. Whatever has happened to us is permanent, a lasting reminder of how our life has changed. 

Catastrophic life events alter our physical and energetic congruence, the fit and flow of energy in our lives that we carefully guard so our lives feel right, they make sense, and we feel safe and secure. Above all, we need to have harmony, where the energy flows effortlessly and we feel in control.

Congruence is part of our 5 energy priorities and they are an important aspect of our 360 degree energy model, a process I created in my trademark Becoming 360™ process. When that model is interrupted, or shattered, we lose all of our focus and grounding, our energy is scattered and chaotic as we try to bring ourselves back into energetic harmony, back into a reality that makes sense, where we feel safe and secure.

But as you know, with catastrophic life events, the past is over and a new reality has started, whether we like it or not. Usually we don’t because it means a total overhaul of our energy priorities, our Becoming 360™ model, and our entire life.

Have you ever noticed that anyone who has experienced a significant life trauma divides their life into two parts, events before the trauma and events after the trauma. The life trauma becomes a marker, a dividing point between old and new, comfortable and uncomfortable, the life we wish we still had vs the one we have to deal with now.

Now we have to learn to point in a new direction, using our energy to create a new life path that integrates our challenge into a new life paradigm. Pivoting doesn’t work, pointing is how we learn to integrate the challenge and make our life work again. 

Imagine the soldier who loses his legs and has to decide how he’s going to manage his life now.

The mother who loses her children and husband, as one of my clients did, and has to create a new life for herself.

The person who dedicates their life to a career that abandons them and they have to start over.

The wife whose husband leaves her and she has to figure out how to survive alone.

There are countless examples of people who have to learn to point in a new direction because pivoting is not an option. Pivoting implies leaving the challenges behind, somehow abandoning the catastrophe and simply starting in a new direction.

Pointing, on the other hand, means we move forward with all of our baggage, the inconveniences, life and health challenges, the pain, the regrets, and the aftermath of whatever has irrevocably just changed our life. No matter how much we wish they were not part of our life now, they are and we have to do more than just learning to live with them, we have to learn to thrive with them and in spite of their limitations, challenges, and annoying inconveniences.

My old life ended on November 21, 1963 and a new life, that I did not consciously choose or want, began on November 22, 1963. I could not pivot away from the paralysis or nerve or muscle damage or loss of balance. Those would be with me for the rest of my life. I had to learn to point in a new direction so my energy could expand and I could thrive in spite of my challenges.

How do you learn to point? Let’s look at the 5 steps to that process

P is for Process – we have to process the challenge and its aftermath. We go through various stages of denial, grief, anger, acceptance, and then finally repurposing the challenge into something we can learn to live with and even excel with. Or we can give up and stop living altogether. That’s a choice too.

O is for Ownership – it’s so easy to fall into the victimhood of ‘why me’ and to deny the presence of this challenge.  We can even wish it would go away and hope that somehow we, or the un