Why do you think it happened to you?

I was talking with Melissa, a lifelong friend of mine who had a serious problem with her brain – an inoperable abscess had appeared suddenly and she was having major problems with the antibiotics, the only known treatment. I asked her why she thought she had gotten the ailment.

First she described how she had been suddenly paralyzed and rushed to the hospital, and the whole course of diagnosis and treatment she endured. Then I asked her again, “Why do you think it happened to you?” She gave a very different answer. She said that by facing death, she no longer feared it and, although she’s prepared for it, she’s not ready. She also said she had put huge effort into her job that, in the end, wasn’t meaningful for her. She was grateful for the understanding and support of her previous employer and the long-term disability made available. She realized she was given an opportunity to find work that would allow her to have a more balanced and rewarding life. She praised her husband for his unwavering love and support. And she recognized the opportunity to explore her spiritual faith and get closer to the Divine.

Wow! I thought. I was so impressed and proud of her strength and insight. You’ll see, when you explore the Five Reasons Why, what else she’s learning from her experience.

Now, your turn. Why do you think this Bad Thing happened to you? This is an instantaneous response question – what is the first thing that comes into your mind?

Enter your answer below or in your journal.

Make sure you identify both your thoughts and your feelings.

It will be important for you to see all your insight now, before reading the rest of the book and after you’ve processed the information that follows throughout this book.

Additional instantaneous response questions to ask yourself and record in your journal:13F

• Was this a surprise?
• Was this event predictable – or preventable?
• If you were to “blame” someone, who would that be? Why?
• Do you blame God or the Divine? If yes, why?
• Are you in any way responsible for what happened to you?
• Was this event a result of your taking a risk?
• Were you in any way in denial, as to the possibility for this happening?
• If yes, have you forgiven yourself? (If you haven’t forgiven yourself, don’t worry. I’ll address that in the chapter on Resolving.

It doesn’t matter what you’re going through, relative to anyone else’s problems. Any pain you’re feeling is real to you – and understandable. You may have experienced feelings of despair; without hope. You might have felt like you were trapped in a pitch dark room, with no windows or doors open and nowhere to turn. You might have felt abandoned by someone close to you – or by The Divine. You might be exhausted with defeat and fear the feelings will never end.

There’s a great book, called Lost Between Lives by Daniel Holden that I recommend. For me, his words felt very real, as if he understood what I was going through. It isn’t a book of platitudes or feel-good affirmations. It’s a book that allows you to realize you’re not alone, that someone knows how you feel.

Although I’m convinced the Five Reasons Why can explain your trauma and help you cope with the problems you’re facing, I never want to diminish the power of your anguish. It’s very real and very palpable and can be extremely life-shattering.

Harold Percival, in his book, Thinking & Destiny11F , says the following:

“If (you do) not run away from the indistinct apprehension of some disaster or from the fear of some definite calamity, (you have) an opportunity to change the desire that helped to conceive or entertain the thought that has to be balanced. All (you) need or can do, is to feel that it wants to do right and is willing to do or to suffer whatever is necessary to that end.”

What he’s saying here is that we need to feel the feelings. We need to be willing to feel the suffering. He goes on to say:

“When (you get yourself) into that feeling, (you have) strength; strength comes. If (you hold) that feeling of strength (you) will be able to go through any disaster.”

We should not ignore our feelings and we definitely should not medicate ourselves to cover them up. We need to experience them deeply, bringing them to the surface to be processed. When we have the courage to face our feelings of misery, loss and hopelessness, we’ll find the strength to get through them. If we don’t face our emotions, they will continue to fester and swell below the surface, creating longer-lasting and more profound pain. Clinical research proved this to be true: “Suppression of emotional thoughts, particularly those thoughts that arouse negative emotions” increases “susceptibility to illness” via a weakened immune system (lower T-cell count).

Exercise U.7: Feel the Feelings

In the chapter on Subconscious Sabotage, you’ll learn how to connect with your Subconscious or Inner Self. The purpose of this exercise is to really get in touch with your conscious feelings.

Find a place and time where you can be alone and not disturbed. And a place where you can’t disturb anyone else – because you’ll make noise!

• You’ll need a tennis/racquetball racquet or a baseball bat (plastic is best), or some other item that has a handle and a rounded end.
• Find a soft piece of furniture – preferably a bed.
• Hit the bed with the racquet – flat side down, facing the bed, as hard as you can and scream out. You can yell words of anger – toward someone in particular or the universe in general- or you can just wail. Keep doing this action – hitting and yelling – until you’re exhausted. Feel free to cry if you get the urge. Just express your gut feelings.

Exercise U.8: Additional Exercise on Expressing Your Emotions:

Throw a temper tantrum. Get on the bed on your back and kick and scream and cry. Just as in the previous exercise, you can yell at someone or at air molecules. Just let your frustrations out.

Length of Impact

Just as we can be living in the past with carried-over fear, we can be dragging out a crisis beyond its actual life span.  Some crises are unremitting and affect us significantly every day of our lives.  But most aren’t; they just seem that way.  For example, we can be mourning the loss of a relationship for an overwhelmingly long period of time, and blaming the past instead of putting the past where it belongs and dealing with today’s feelings today.  This exercise helps put the length of impact into perspective.

What areas of your life have been or are being affected the most by the crisis? Sometimes an event that affects one area of our lives can expand to affecting other areas of our lives. I’ve noticed in my own life, years ago, that I’ve lost people I considered friends when times got tough for me. Perhaps they did not know what to say. Or maybe they didn’t want to catch the problems I had, as though failure or loss was some kind of virus. A friend of mine realized there were a number of people who were there for her when her mother died, but for only a short period of time, then they were gone.

By looking at the areas of your life (Relationships, Financial, Home, Job/Career, Future Direction, Self image, and Physical) and examining the degree in which each are affected by what you’re going through, you’ll have the tools to cope with the experience. This exercise helps us see the areas of our life that were not affected and gives us an opportunity to be grateful for what we have.

Getting the proper perspective on the timing of the Bad Thing happening can help you deal with it more precisely and effectively.

Worry and Fear are focusing on dealings that have yet to take place. When I was in my darkest times, it was mostly due to worry or dread. I was unsure whether I could cope with horrors I saw coming on the horizon. I found out, however, that worrying about an event is always worse than it happening. For example when I realized that selling everything I owned could be a freeing experience, it changed my perspective and made me realize the truth of President Roosevelt’s statement below.

We have nothing to fear but fear itself.
- Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Guilt and resentment are emotions created by things that have already happened. Guilt and remorse can keep us trapped in the past and paralyze us from moving forward, either because we don’t feel worthy or because we’re afraid we’ll make the same mistake again. Resentment is also an emotion caused by living in the past, but instead of regretting something we did in the past, we’re angry with someone else for what they did to us.

Subconscious Sabotage, one of the Five Reasons Why, demonstrates the power of the emotions of worry, fear, guilt and resentment and how they can actually bring about the things you fear the most.

Both fear and guilt can be helpful emotions, however. Just as fear can be a healthy way to tell us what to avoid in the future, guilt or remorse is an opportunity to learn from our mistakes. Resentment gives us the opportunity to experience one of the most positive, loving and healing emotions we can feel: forgiveness.

Knowing the time perspective helps us know how to deal with the problem.

Cause

Identifying the cause of the event is a valuable way to get more understanding, and the more you’re able to take some level of responsibility, the greater your potential for healing and learning. As you’ll learn later in this book, the cause for a tragedy may or may not be one of the Reasons Why the event occurred. In the chapter on Karma I’ll talk about causes and effects that affect individuals. In the chapter on Subconscious Sabotage, I’ll discuss how our thoughts – conscious and unconscious – create reality. For this exercise, determine what you now think who – or what – caused the tragedy.

In their book Predictable Surprises, Max H. Bazerman and Michael D. Watkins define large-scale events (using examples including Enron and the 9/11 attacks) that are both predictable and preventable, yet which come as surprises, either because leaders refuse to see the evidence and ignore the warnings or they “don’t think it can happen.” Their book is a caution to business and political leaders to look for potential threats, respond in a timely manner and learn from mistakes.

Similarly, individual trials and tribulations should be analyzed as to whether they could have been predictable or preventable. Some things, of course, can’t be prevented. Every one of us will die, but we can have some control over how we die. We will all experience the loss of a loved one, but we can be better prepared to cope. Other tragic events may be prevented completely, like many illnesses, relationship problems, business and financial failures and even accidents and being a victim of a crime. The chapter on Spiritual Darwinism includes tools for preventing these future adversities and will show how you can avoid being personally disturbed by large group events like attacks, and natural disasters.

It's time to change the mind-set that
natural disasters are inevitable.
- Gordon McBean

Analyzing the cause of a situation helps us become more aware of our responsibility, which then can empower us to resolve the Bad Things that happen.

UNDERSTANDING YOUR CRISIS

Before we begin looking at the Five Reasons Why, it’s important to get a clear understanding of the crisis you’re going through, including your role in the event, what is causing the problem, the time and the areas of life that are affected.

EVENTS AND POTENTIAL ELEMENTS

There are several elements that define tragic events, including:

1. The Role of the individual and how he/she is involved
2. The Cause of the event
3. The Time Perspective – whether the event has happened in the past, is happening now or is expected to happen in the future, and
4. The Areas of Life that are affected.

Role

To whom is the event happening? It’s important to recognize whether the event is happening to you directly, or to someone close to you. If it’s happening directly to you – you’re the one with the health crisis, the job loss, or the broken heart – your experience will be very different than if you’re indirectly involved. You may feel guilt or a degree of responsibility for how your calamity is affecting those close to you. You may know that you can handle the financial impact of a job loss, but you may be having profound feelings of the sacrifices your family will have to endure, for example.

If the disaster isn’t yours specifically, it can still affect you deeply. For example, if your parent is diagnosed with a terminal illness, you may need to take on more responsibilities or you may not be able to receive comfort for your own challenges and distress. Your colleague may lose his or her job and not only will you miss their companionship and contribution, but your own workload will increase.

Or, perhaps the challenge may not be yours directly or indirectly, but you still feel profoundly affected by the stories of the anguish other people are going through, which makes it affect you personally. Millions of people mourned the death of Princess Diana, but to many the grief was personal: it brought up memories of their own divorce, or eating problem, or perhaps thinking of the children’s loss of their beloved mother.

To understand your crisis, you’ll also want to see if an event that has happened to someone else has caused a fear in yourself. If a hurricane can hit New Orleans, what natural disaster could affect your home? If your sister could get cervical cancer, could you? If a terrorist could attack New York, what is the possibility they could attack your home town? Fear, as I’ll discuss in the chapter on Subconscious Sabotage, has a powerful effect on our lives and we need to identify the source.

Change in Future Direction

When something major happens, it usually means that something we had planned for is now either interrupted or ended entirely. When someone loses a child, for example, they come to a painful realization that they won’t have the opportunity to witness their graduation, marriage and possibly grandchildren. When we lose a job, we have to acknowledge that the pension we had planned won’t happen.

In Maxwell Maltz’s classic book, Psycho-Cybernetics, he talks about how our brains work as a heat-seeking missile when we set a target. When something occurs to eliminate the possibility of what we had set as a goal, our brains become confused and frustrated.

Sometimes pessimism makes us think our previous goals are now “impossible,” when they may just be delayed or changed. As you’ll learn in the fifth Reason Why, it may even be better than planned in many cases. Inability to have children may result in a more rewarding future by adopting. Losing a job may lead to a successful entrepreneurial adventure. In the meantime, however, our original plans are interrupted.

Change in Day-to-Day Activity

Most major events have two phases. The first phase is when our lives are turned upside down with a flurry of activity. We need to focus on the problem at hand, which means that we abandon other important things in our lives: family, friends, work, and engaging in pleasurable activities. Usually, we’re too busy to even think about what we’re missing, but occasionally it sets in and we get lonely, resentful or reminiscent of “the good old days.”

In the second phase, a whole different set of emotions and situations occur when the major elements of the crisis have subsided. We have more time on our hands, and we also have to address the people and responsibilities we had put off.

In my hospice work, I’ve learned that one of the most challenging aspects families face is the sometimes dramatic change in their day to day schedules. While caring for a person who is seriously ill (or in trouble), family members’ schedules are completely shifted toward taking care of the other person. The family might feel resentment and loss for the activities they were no longer able to experience. When the patient has passed on (or the trouble is over), the daily plans become wide open, sometimes causing loneliness and pain.

My sister was exceptionally attached to her 17 year old dog. Being single and childless, this companion meant the world to her. Every day she spent most of her time with her beloved animal, knowing that she needed her extra care and that their time together was probably limited. When her pet died, I was not only very worried about her grief, but also concerned about the emptiness of her day-to-day life, so I “loaned” her my dog to take care of for a few weeks. It proved to be a significant contribution to her life. She could dote on my pet, filling up her schedule, but since she already knew him and was aware that he wasn’t in her long-term future, she wouldn’t have the problems often associated with getting another pet too soon, and she could return him to me when she was better able to cope.

Reduction/Elimination of Pleasurable Activities

When we’re faced with upsetting incidents we’re often forced to cut back on enjoyable activities – or potentially give them up. People entrenched in the aftermath of a natural disaster, for example, would often do anything for a hot bath. When we suffer a financial setback we feel deprived when we can’t go out to dinner or buy something we want. When someone close to us dies, we often feel guilty when we do things fun or pleasurable, thinking that somehow it “isn’t fair to their memory.”

Change in Relationships

Relationships can change dramatically during a crisis. I’ve noticed when times were bad for me, I’ve lost a lot of friends. At first, it was very upsetting, and it caused me to challenge my faith, not only in the people I called friends, but also in my ability to choose the people to whom I would become close.

Because of my work with hospice patients, I know that the first few weeks following a death, the survivors will often be besieged with flowers, food and notes of sympathy. But after this initial period, they’re often, in contrast, left very alone and sometimes forgotten.

When a close friend went through two major painful events at the same time, (the death of her mother and a divorce), she became aware of the changing nature of relationships during a crisis. Some people, she found, were right there at the beginning of the crisis, doing whatever they could do. She was grateful, but then she also saw that some of them weren’t in for the long haul.

When we lose a job, we often lose the relationships that go along with it. When we go through a divorce, friends and family often “take sides.” Relationships change even more dramatically when we have direct responsibility for causing our own crisis.

Separation from Others

Not only are we less able to see our friends and lose contact with other people, but we also can feel a sense of separation, of being different from them. We might fear we’re being judged or condemned, so we avoid them. Of course, if we’re incarcerated or in the hospital, then we have a literal physical separation from others.

Challenge of Faith or Trust

Our faith is challenged when we don’t understand the Reasons Why the event occurred. We won’t understand why our Higher Power could “let this happen,” which makes us question His/Her power and concern.

And a crisis can also make us question and doubt the motives of other people, sometimes even making us distrust everyone.

One of the primary goals of this book is to provide understanding in this area and re-instill faith, in the Divine and in others.

Repeat Patterns and Downward Spiraling

If you are caught in a situation of emotional turmoil,
or if your ego has taken over, or if you find that something you are trying to accomplish is more difficult than it should be, that too many obstacles have come across your path,
stop and ask yourself why.
Your spirit knows, your intuition knows,
but you have to be awake enough,
and have enough self-awareness, to hear the message.
- Carmen Harra

Sometimes the same, or a similar, problem can show up again and again. This can be a sign of a pattern repeating itself. For example, some people get one illness after another. Others may keep losing the same kinds of jobs.

Downward Spiraling is when one tragic event evolves into more and more problems. Someone can be a victim of crime and then become so upset or paranoid, they lose their job. Then they may experience the resulting financial problems and losses, which can put a strain on their relationships. What is the trigger that starts the spiral? By becoming aware of the Five Reasons Why, you’ll be able to stop your patterns from repeating and spiraling downward.

Bad Things are easy to recognize, but difficult to define clearly. Easy to recognize because, as you’ll see on the list of examples later in this chapter, most people would acknowledge that each of these examples are events that qualify as tragic, or at least a significant problem.

But Bad Things are difficult to define, because it depends on perspective (how you look at it), and the emotions involved. We could also look at the list and think of examples where crises like these happened to someone and either they handled it courageously, “took it in stride” or perhaps even eventually benefited from their experience.

But we certainly know a Bad Thing when we’re faced with it. This is because we feel it. These aren’t things just happening around us, they’re happening to us, within us, which means they contain physical or emotional pain, or both. The following exercise is simple, but extremely important because this book is about your bad thing, so your definition is critical for you to be aware of.

HOW DO YOU DEFINE A “BAD THING?”

The purpose of this exercise isn’t to help you define what you’re going through – we’ll do that in the next chapter. This exercise is just to help you define what Bad Things are in general.

Exercise: How Do You Define a “Bad Thing”?

Go through each of the points below and check any and all that apply to what you consider a “Bad Thing.”

□ Physical pain
□ Emotional pain – Something that makes you feel:
□ depressed  
□ useless
□ frustrated                                                      
□ desperate
□ discouraged
□ ignored
□ angry
□ inconsolable
□ guilty
□ betrayed or deceived
□ ashamed or embarrassed
□ unloved / unlovable
□ alone
□ sad
□ neglected
□ miserable
□ deserted /abandoned
□ gloomy
□ unworthy / worthless
□ lonely or isolated
□ lost
□ unsatisfied
□ vulnerable
□ pessimistic
□ helpless
□ bitter
□ defenseless
□ abused or mistreated
□ unhappy
□ afraid
□ weak
□ blocked / obstructed
□ hopeless
□ other : ______________________
□ other: ______________________
□ other: ______________________

I’ll come back to this list later in the book, so please complete the above exercise before you proceed.

A few months ago, a friend asked, “How could a nation of people follow a leader supporting killing and violence?” My answer: “Survival of the Fittest.”

I’m not talking about evolution here – I’m talking about the basic drive for survival on the planet. Survival of the Fittest suggests that those who have a higher degree of the following three strengths will have an advantage over others: (1) mental/intellectual, (2) physical and (3) emotional. Objectively, the planet’s model of Survival of the Fittest has benefits: it ensures progress and advancement.

The major problem with Survival of the Fittest is that when people are feeling vulnerable, their instinct is to find someone to subjugate (put down/overpower) to be more “fit” than another, which is known as Social Darwinism. Misaligned political leaders take advantage of this impulse by unifying the public against a common enemy, thereby instilling a sense of superiority. Certain religious figures use the same strategy: inciting a false attitude of supremacy over other groups, even going so far as to say that unless someone follows their particular faith they’re destined for hell. Individuals follow this behavior also through condemnation, criminal acts, abusive behavior, corruption, domination and greed.

Gary Zukav, in his book, The Seat of the Soul, uses the term Personality to describe the Inner Self or subconscious, and Soul to describe the Higher Self. He then describes how, due to Survival of the Fittest, the Inner Self is focused on the five-sensory physical world, where “the basis of life in the physical arena is fear.” Zukav says, “Fearful and violent emotions, that have come to characterize human existence, can be experienced only by the Personality (Inner Self). Only the Inner Self can feel anger, fear, hatred, vengeance, sorrow, shame, regret, indifference, frustration, cynicism and loneliness. Only the Personality (Inner Self) can judge, manipulate and exploit.”

One problem with Social Darwinism is that it’s in conflict with the Divine Law, “Love your neighbors as yourself.” This conflict produces discrimination, intolerance and imperialism, thereby generating negative behavior and retaliatory action – making Bad Things happen. Another problem is that, by destroying our fellow citizens of Earth, we’re destroying our planet, thereby eventually obliterating ourselves – the ultimate final tragedy.

In addition to the three strengths mentioned above, this author also suggests a fourth, and infinitely more powerful, strength that not only contributes to, but ensures survival: a strong spiritual connection. I’m calling this Spiritual Darwinism8F . When we’re able to connect to our 3 Selves and with the Divine, we’ll be able to eliminate the negative associations with Survival of the Fittest and find a way to prevent Bad Things from happening – to us and to our planet.

Where love rules, there is no will to power;
and where power predominates, there love is lacking.
– Carl Jung

BASIC ASSUMPTION #8: EVIL CAN BE EXPLAINED
Webster defines evil as, “morally bad or wrong; harmful injurious; unlucky, disastrous; wickedness and sin.” Nowhere does Webster refer to an outside source creating the effect of evil. All the elements of the definition of the word can be – and are – created by man. All of the so-called evil in the world can be explained by both Survival of the Fittest and the Five Reasons Why.

I was talking with a close friend the other day and he said, “the evil was back” in his life. He was upset at a number of negative, Bad Things that were happening. His analogy was that we were living in dangerous woods where man-eating bears could come and attack you at any time.

My response was “Yes, there are bears in the woods, but they won’t attack you unless there is a reason. There’s a lot of evil out in the world, but it won’t affect you unless one of the Five Reasons Why are happening in your life.”

So, what is evil? Evil comes from human thought and action, whether conscious or not. Evil is separation from love, from the Divine. The devil is dark, destructive, low-vibrational energy, generated by collective human thoughts of anger, envy, fear and hatred, which stem from the competition generated by "survival of the fittest." When an individual has one of these thoughts himself, he separates himself from the Divine. At this point, it’s up to him whether or not to join into the vicious cycle. If that individual joins the injurious energy, he will commit egregious crimes against himself, against humanity and against the planet.

The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary:
Men alone are quite capable of every wickedness.
– Joseph Conrad

However, we tend to think of evil as “out there,” instead of inside us. Why is that? For two reasons. First, it feels that way. Because these feelings and actions usually come from the darker “shadow” part of our subconscious that we suppress, we’re often not aware of this fear-motivated and control-dominated drive within us and our fellow man.

Second, it’s a way we can take the responsibility away from ourselves and just say, “the devil made me do it.” The problem with that approach is that not only is it erroneous, it disconnects us from the influence and control we have in our lives. It places the blame outside of our free will.