Wake-up calls help you get your life in order

The wake up call. These are the calls we hope we never have to receive. Ignorance is just so much more blissful. There you are, going blithely on your way and then something interrupts your calm. It could be a diagnosis, finding drugs in your teens bag or a call from your human resource informing you that you are about to be laid off.

It could be a crisis in a relationship, a difficult discussion with your bank manager or a business challenge In an instant, it seems that everything is up in the air. You are drowning and clutching onto straws. Will you make it?

Although it doesn’t seem like a helpful thing, a wake-up call can be a blessing. Because it means that you have time. A friend who recently lost a grand-parent told me how the calls about her failing health created a sense of urgency to spend time with her aging relative. She didn’t see it at the time, but those were wake-up calls allowed her to do something for her grand-mother with the time she had left. They allowed her to express her love, gratitude and in some way, to say goodbye.

Secondly, a wake-up call is meant to do just that: wake you up. It pulls us out of our slumber or comfort zone. It reminds us that life is fragile and short and we often do not make time for what is important or do what is important. Say you receive an unwelcome health diagnosis.

That wake-up call forces you to re-assess your current health and realise that you can not eat all you want, drink all you want or stress yourself to death without repercussions.  You have been jolted into reality and while we may believe that ignorance is bliss, what you do not know may very well kill you.

GROWTH AND PROGRESS

Third, a wake-up call asks you to change something or change yourself. The old order of things has been disrupted and change in afoot. If you refuse to change and insist on perpetuating your old habits, the wake-up call will be wasted. And that’s not even the worst of it. What’s worse, is that you could lose your life, relationship or the opportunity for a new beginning.

Fourth, a wake-up call is an opportunity for growth. We are more prone to see them as a rude awakening. However, on the other side of the wake-up call, is growth and progress, especially if we do not reject the process. Growth may be inconvenient and painful but if you labour through it, you find that you develop new insights and new skills that will help you improve your life.

While wake-up calls will come to all of us at some point, we need to learn how to deal effectively with them. We must avoid the temptation to re-act harshly or impulsively. Acting when your emotions are still raw could move you from the proverbial frying pan into the fire. Assess yourself and avoid the temptation to make excuses. Why are you here? What has just happened and what does it mean? What are your options? What resources do you need or have to help you cope. It is cliché but when you receive a wake-up call, the message to ‘keep calm and carry on’ works.

Next avoid the temptation to play the victim card. In her online blog, U-Fulfilled, Toti Cadavid writes: “When these “life tests” happen, we are faced with so much pain that many of us initially take on the mindset of the victim. We blame God, life, or others for our circumstances.

Unfortunately, not much progress can be reached when we are in victim mode. In that mode, we identify so much with the situation that we express it as part of our identity: “I have cancer”, “I am sick”, “I can’t have children”, “my husband left me”, “my wife is constantly giving me grief”, “I lost my father”, etc. We will detach our misfortunes from our identity only when we understand that those things did not happen to us, but that they happened for us. Leaving victimhood has very powerful transformational rewards, as it not only allows us to process our circumstances effectively, but it all also allows us to shift and take responsibility for our part in the matter and see those experiences as valuable life lessons.”

In the end, we get more than we can handle. As difficult and as cruel as it may be, we can use our wake-up call to our advantage.