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Bad news? So what?

No matter how cloudy it might be, the sun will be somewhere behind the clouds -
 i.e. no matter how many dark clouds are surrounding your spirit at the moment:
 they will never be able to completely distinguish the light within you.

When we have to tell bad news to someone, we often try to sweeten them up by also adding something positive. After all, we don't want to be responsible for the other person's anger, sadness or despair. If we have to communicate something negative (i.e. "I'm sorry but you will have to look for a different job"), we often try to add something that puts the other person into a positive mindset (i.e. "I am sure that your skills will be very welcome in a slightly different kind of job.") I am sure you can think of a few examples on your own.

In general, we are responsible for how we react to bad news. In the past, bad news really got to me and it was easy for me to fall into a very negative pattern in which I thought things like "Well, I'm just not worth it." - "I'm not good enough." - "This person isn't really my friend." - "People only care about me when they need something from me." and so on. It might all be true: many people did only take advantage of me, someone turned out to not be a friend at all and maybe I wasn't good enough for the job I wanted to have - but did it help me to brood about it and be negative? No, it didn't.

Even though life still isn't perfect and full of problems currently, I have a bit of a different perspective - maybe also because I'm more earthed in my spiritual beliefs now and don't strive to be "perfect" anymore. There have been some bad news in my life recently but instead of only moaning and brooding about them, I also try to ask the question: "What can I learn from this? And maybe this just wants to make me move into a different direction?"

The seagull might see the approaching wave (not visible on this photo) as bad news -
or it could simply see it as achallenge to test whether it'll be able to keep its
place on the rock. The seagull did indeed choose to not fly away. It was
covered by water when the wave approached and then gave me a look
 like it wanted to say: "See?"

I say "I try" because I have to admit that I am still prone to brooding - and yes, sometimes I am negative, esp. when I'm not the person who can solve the problem. But I am at a stage where I can see other sides to bad news. And bad news are only bad news when we let them. Instead of seeing them as bad news, we could see them as challenges.

So, the next time you either receive bad news or have to give bad news to someone else: try to see the other side as well. Try to think of the opportunities that may arise from this challenge. It's not easy - but it will help you to be more productive than if you only saw the negative side.

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