Coaching Your Pause Button 2

“Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.” – Unknown

I carried this quote around with me several years ago as a reminder. A couple weeks ago I  had a harsh reminder of it.  I was sound asleep in my comfortable hotel bed when the loud hotel alarm sounded, an obnoxious siren followed by a recording to “immediately evacuate, take the stairs, not the elevators.” In a daze, I threw on some clothes, grabbed my phone (no explanation for why just the phone) and left the room. I was in a stream of people going down the cement stairs in the corner of the building that ended outside, in the dark rain. We all found our way around to the front of the hotel and went into the lobby. People were standing in huddles and wandering around the lobby. I asked the desk clerk, “What is the story?” It was obvious that the hotel was not burning down. He said the alarm sensor was broken and they were working on fixing it. We were allowed to go back to our rooms. As I rode up with the elevator with the other sleepy people, I looked at my phone: 3:00am. My anger started rising as I realized that I just went into the rainy night for no good reason and I had a full day of team coaching the next day. I would be tired; the whole team would be tired. Back in the room, I tried to go back to sleep but the alarm went of again, then again and again. It was every 20 minutes or so, very loud, so that you can’t sleep through it. You know, like there was a fire. I was staring at the ceiling, feeling my blood pressure rising. I took a few deep breaths and realized that my suffering was coming more from me than that loud alarm. I was dry and comfortable. There was no fire. I was able to stay calm and go back to sleep (finally, after the alarm stopped going off).

You’ve heard the saying that life is made up of 10% of what happens to you and 90% of how  you react to it. It takes practice to hit the pause button and stop the downward spiral of emotions. A couple years ago, I know that I would have been up the rest of the night because I would have become so upset that I was unable to relax enough to go back to sleep.  I would have suffered so much more because I let my frustrations and anger get the better of me. It is much more enjoyable and life is so much better when I hit that pause button and shift into reviewing the facts and what I am grateful for so that I can minimize my suffering.

How can you minimize your suffering by hitting the pause button and shifting to gratitude? Please leave a comment to share. 

photo credit via Flickr creative commons: Jordon (it is not the hotel that I was in)