Change Your Attitude, Change Your Life
(This is an excerpt from a University Of Metaphysical Sciences course at www.umsonline.org, please feel free to visit the school website)
Perhaps the most powerful kind of thoughts, in terms of their effect on experience, are those that collectively make up what we call “attitude,” which is more deeply ingrained in us than a thought. Christine Jette describes in Tarot Shadow Work (2000), “Our emotional and physical well-being is closely related to our attitudes about ourselves and life. When we feel good about ourselves we allow good things to happen in our lives. When we don’t love ourselves, we allow an opening for negative experiences to come our way. An optimist will see the light at the end of the tunnel. A pessimist will view the light as another train coming to mow her down; same light, different attitude.”
The pessimists reading this course might ask, “But what if the light really is a train?” A student of quantum physics might point out that the light is neither the end of the tunnel nor the train until an act of perception makes it one or the other. The incurable optimist is the one who still won’t get out of the way, even when the blinding light and the train whistle ought to have dispelled all doubt as to the nature of what is approaching. The incurable pessimist is the one who still clings to the tunnel wall, long after the sun has gone down and the light at the end of the tunnel has vanished. From these speculations we can infer that the proper attitude corresponds to the actual nature of the situation we face.
This doesn’t mean that the perfect attitude will make it so we don’t have to experience pain and suffering in our lives. The ideal attitude won’t stop the war, or fix the economy, or house the homeless. As long as war continues, as long as poverty exists, people will continue to experience pain and suffering. These unfortunate conditions of life cannot be avoided. The shadow in ourselves and in the world must be faced in order for it to be overcome. In other words, the proper attitude allows us to adjust to the world as it is, and to accept the state of things as they are, whether we would like to change them or not.
Once we acknowledge the true nature of the world, and accept our own place within that world, we can begin to do the work that we feel called to do. Such work will bring us peace of mind, for we will know that we are doing all we can to make the world a better place for everyone to live. Even pain has a purpose, and must be experienced. Christine Jette tells us in Tarot Shadow Work (2000), “Suffering in one’s life doesn’t mean that you are working through bad karma or divine retribution, as some would explain it. Instead, such hardship is a natural part of life, allowing us to flex our spiritual muscles: ‘No pain, no gain,’ the old saying goes.” With this perspective in mind we can develop an attitude that allows us to view suffering and pain as metaphysical weights that we have been given for the purpose of gaining spiritual strength.