It occurred to me the other night as I was trying to help a friend through some problems that none of the problems we encounter are accidental. I mean when you get down to the nitty gritty of reality, everything has a cause and effect. There really can’t be an effect without a cause.

The first thing that jumps to my mind when I think of “accident” is a traffic accident. This could be because recently I was flying down the road singing along to Bob Marley and a car at the intersection in front of me ran a red light and nailed two other cars. (Yes, I stopped briefly until it became a circus of good samaritans and I felt like I was just adding to the confusion.) Was this intended? No. But it certainly wasn’t an accident. The crash (the effect) was a result of inattentive driving (the cause). Shifting our focus from the effect to the cause is going to help us solve some problems, people.

It is through understanding of cause that we realize there is no accidental problem. After really thinking about this and using examples in my friends life, I started examining my own life. What negative effects am I experiencing that I have not identified the cause of? What problems in my life am I dealing with and how am I dealing with them? Am I reacting to the effect or am I searching for a cause?

This has a lot to do with the universe and how it interprets you. The Universe will ALWAYS give us what it thinks we are asking for. If we are continuously living in negativity and self-loathing it will be actualized into our physical world, whether we know it or not. The Universe, or “God” as some people like to say, is a keen observer. It will watch your actions, determine what you want out of life, and then give them to you. The problem with this is that our actions do not often reflect our wants, desires, or values. The Universe, or “God” can only interpret the actions and intentions we present. If our actions, thoughts, and intentions are not conducive of our values – we end up with a lot of shit we don’t want.

When I was an instructor at a hair school I was introduced to a life-changing lesson. It is that of values and behaviors. Basically we were asked to write down all the things we value in life. Here’s mine:

My family/relationship

My health

My career

My creativity

My friends

These are all really kick ass things to value, wouldn’t you agree? I thought so, too. Then in a column next to our values we were to list the things that we DO. This took a little longer. Here are some of the things I did:

I worked a LOT. Usually more than 60 hours a week.

Because I worked a lot I sacrificed time with my children and my family.

I ate a lot of fast food. (Oh Carl’s Jr. YOU ARE BAD!)

I smoked and drank excessively.

I did not work out.

Working a lot left little time for any type of social life unless it was somehow work involved.

When we evaluated these two lists I was shocked at learning that basically nothing I did reflected anything I valued. I literally had students at this job tell me they had no idea I even had kids – ouch. So what I was putting into the universe was contrary to what I felt in my heart. This was causing a lot of problems in my life. Not only with my friends and family but it was taking a toll on me emotionally and physically as well.

While I was living this life a lot of “problems” came up. A lot of problems I never wanted to face and it left me feeling unfairly loaded with opposition. At this point in time it wasn’t possible for me to take responsibility for these problems, they were just something that happened to me. Something I would now have to deal with. If you would have told me I created these problems I would have told you to eff right off.

Here’s an example of a problem: I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis  (MS) and Idiopathic Intercranial Hypertension (IIH). MS is an autoimmune disease where your immune system attacks the central nervous system. IIH is a really long fancy word for high pressure in the cerebral spinal fluid. I wasn’t super stoked about either of these, as you can imagine. I fell victim to this disease for about a year. I allowed a diagnosis to dictate my energy levels, my involvement with others, and to be quite honest it was a really good excuse to not try very hard at life. I wasn’t ever SUPER negative about my disease, I tried my best to be positive, I read some good books, changed my thinking a little but there was still a point in my life that I accepted the disease and everything I thought it would do to me.

Fast forward to summer of 2014 here we are, I’m doing freaking fantastic, I’ve changed a lot about myself and I’ve created a more harmonic environment where my mind and my soul can exist together. And now I am looking back at this life I led and the problems I created. That’s right. I created.

When I was working myself to death, ignoring the precious relationships with my children, eating, drinking, smoking and being careless with my body, the Universe could only interpret that as one thing. She doesn’t care about her health. If the Universe interprets my behavior as not caring about my health, how then can I be offended that it was threatened to be taken away? The problem with my health wasn’t the diagnosis, the problem with my health was that I treated it like it didn’t matter. The cause was negligence. The effect was an unwanted diagnosis. Are you starting to see something here? I hope so. My thoughts and behavior did NOT in one single way indicate that I gave one crap about my body and the way it functioned. Not one.

Guess what happened when I started letting my behaviors reflect the value of my health? If you follow me on Instagram you know. I am rocking this thing down to electric avenue.

I will absolutely write more about my incredible journey on health with these diagnoses because THATS and awesome story.

Let’s get back on track. The point is, that all of my problems are not really problems. They are actualizations of my intentions and behaviors. I can take responsibility from everything to my money problems to the custody battle I am in the middle of. (Remember when I said I worked a lot and my relationship with my children suffered? I have created a problem because of that. NOT COOL LYNZIE!) Now that I realize the cause of these problems I can work to remedy them in a way I choose, not  a way I am forced to accept. I do not have to accept MS. And I don’t. I am even careful with my words when I talk about it. I never say “I have MS” I say “I was diagnosed with MS.” It is my intention to rid myself of that diagnosis. It’s already working! 😉

I am going to ask you to look at your problems. Can you find the cause? In finding the cause we can then find the remedy. This is a pretty powerful, but painful exercise, be prepared to learn some ugly truths about yourself. But if you really want to create a better life for yourself, do it. Write down the things you value and see if your behaviors reflect them. If they don’t it could be causing the problems in your life. When we live in a way that our behaviors reflect our values life starts reflecting them back to us. Better relationships with our families, because we are increasing their value though our actions.  We experience increased income because we learn to behave like we value money. And so important to this little blonde, increased health because we are showing the Universe how important it is to us.

Put those values out there – shine them bright for everyone to see. DO things that make a difference and DO things that matter to you. Don’t let your life be an accident. Let it be a reflection of your own creation!

Namaste

-L