By Paula Bianchi –

Overcoming defeat, is a challenge we must face many times during our lives. At one end of the spectrum, there are some who may overcome their defeat and put it behind them quickly, while at the other end of the spectrum, you have those who completely crumble in upon themselves as they let their defeat consume them. Most of us fall somewhere in-between these two extremes.

It’s a given that life will throw us good and bad tests, or lessons, throughout each lifetime because we wrote each and every one of those events in our lives. This is the roller coaster ride we all willingly signed up for. We actually stood in line waiting for our turn to be born on Earth. After decades of planning, with our guides and the souls who’ll be our key players, we come here with the best of intentions, but our emotions, coupled with our attitude and karma, can steer us off our preferred track.

Defeat is one of our hardest lessons to learn and accept. The problems we face are tests for our soul because it’s not easy driving this earthen body or avatar. The body comes with emotions just like the characters from the Disney movie, Inside Out, in your head, except the movie needed one more character who also occupies a space in our heads. Our soul. The soul tries to be the orchestra leader of our emotions, but our emotions can take on a life of their own making it hard for our soul to get through.

We can set ourselves up for a difficult defeat, when we peg all of our hopes and dreams on one preferred outcome. We can want it so badly that we won’t even allow ourselves to think of losing, or not getting what we wanted, or not being able to stop someone from winning. These kinds of defeat can be very difficult to overcome, but we set ourselves up for this type of disappointment by not allowing ourselves to consider, and accept, any outcome other than what we had hoped for. This is when we are being our own worst enemy.

The quickest way to accept defeat is by accepting both possible outcomes to any given situation, and you should also have a plan in place for both outcomes. Keeping yourself open and being accepting, are two powerful tools you can use to help minimize your experience with defeat. Using these tools, is the best way to win your mind game.

Feeling defeated doesn’t just apply to any competition where the end result is a winner. We can feel defeated because of: our job, our efforts not being recognized, being knock down when we’re trying to get ahead, the end of a relationship, rumors being spread about you, not feeling loved, our parents or friends, and our own inner dialog.

Children, when growing up, can feel a deep sense of being defeated by parents who neglected them, or when an adult takes advantage of their naivete to molest them. When we’re young, everything is out of our control. It’s during this time that we’re the most vulnerable, and what happens to us when we’re young, shapes and forms our view of the world making it difficult for us to deal with our own baggage as grown adults.

They call our childhood the formative years for a reason. It’s when we learn that promises aren’t always kept. We learn the adults in our lives may not be what they seem. School is our first experience with a social life and for many kids, it’s not all crack up to what it should be. Bullies run the play yard, and they never go away. Every time when a kid gets knocked down, they feel defeated. If they don’t have a supportive family life, they have to learn how to deal with it on their own, which can lead to some troubling behavior.

As adults, we can feel defeated by the fact we haven’t gotten married and started our family yet like many in our family or our friends have done. When we have people, pointing this out to us every time we see them, it can add even more to our feelings of defeat.

A wife/husband can feel defeated when their significant other doesn’t recognize or appreciate all they’ve done for them. Parents can feel defeated each time they bail their kids out of hot water, while they wonder if they’re ever going to learn.

I could go on and on with examples of how we can feel defeated in our lives because all of us have faced defeat and every person’s experience, in this world, is unique to them. What defeats one person, may lift another up. It depends of what you’re supposed to learn from your perceived defeat.

Most of the time, the things that make us feel defeated are out of our control, but this feeling can also be self-inflicted by our own thoughts or actions. Maybe we just need to tweak the way we think about something or how we perceived the situation.

Our thoughts are powerful because they’re full of energy, so if you have a positive dialog running through your head, it’s easier for you to jump the hurdles of defeat and move on with your life, but if you let negativity run your thoughts, you run the risk of dealing with the negative situations these thoughts are drawing to you.

Always remember, we are the sum total of our thoughts and our chosen actions, or reactions, in life. It’s important for us to never forget that feeling defeated is a choice. Yep, you heard me right. It’s a choice you make based on the emotions that were triggered inside of you. So, start planning now. How will you deal with your next defeat?

Where your thoughts go; your energy flows.

In my next Mind Games article, I’ll write about diversity. Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see you again. Bye for now.

Email: Remyel@hotmail.com