YOU GET WHAT YOU GET & YOU DON’T GET UPSET!
Volume 1

“You get what you get and you don’t get upset!” is a phrase a teacher at my children’s school says as she passes out the colored paper to her six year-old students. It is an effective process to prevent the usual squabbles when the children do not get their preferred color. The children enjoy the rhyming chant and have spontaneously started using it. Older and younger siblings and even parents are using it. Its use has extended to all areas of life including our dinner table! As my children help me serve the nightly meal, I often hear “You get what you get, and you don’t get upset”.

The kids like it because it is a fair way to distribute things and if someone starts to grumble their discontent, then they usually repeat the chant and follow it up with something like “it’s just a piece of paper; the color doesn’t matter; or no one else gets to change”.

As I hear this chant being used around me, I have come to realize that it holds great spiritual truth in its simplicity. Imagine if we all received things in life with gratitude rather than focusing on our unmet expectations and judgmental views? How easy would life be if we just trusted that everything that came into our lives, was there to help us rather than hinder us? No matter what it was.

Interestingly, even these very questions are often met with disbelief and rage. “A loving God would never do that” or “How could God do this to me?” is often voiced when something “bad” happens. Perhaps like me, you have thought and said these very words when life just seemed to be working against you.

Of course, the path of life is never a simple journey along a straight road. It has ups, downs and lots of turns and we often feel like life is a runaway roller-coaster. Occasionally we might even want to get off but we know we cannot, after all it is where we learn the most. It is where we see the light of dawn after the dark of night; the priceless gift of a hug after crying; and our inner strength after accomplishing our goals.

The more I hear the phrase “you get what you get and you don’t get upset” the more I have come to value it. Not just as a great management tool for kids, but to teach us about living a spiritual life of detachment and acceptance. Learning to detach from our expectations, judgments and life dramas is a powerful and necessary process in becoming more spiritual. This attachment is all ego driven. It is our ego that wants things to happen a certain way, and to create drama when it does not get what it wants. Many of us allow ourselves to get lost in the dramas of life. We focus on our unmet needs and sit in judgment of ourselves and others. We feel angry and resentful, disliking what we have but not knowing how to get what we want. This is not the life that our soul wants for us. It is a life created by the illusions of the human ego, and it is part of our human journey to overcome it.

For the longest time, humanity has felt alone and separated from their soul but it is just an illusion. These ego illusions feel very strong, but the ego is only a small part of us which we have given great power. The ego is the part of us that has forgotten that we are actually a part of the Divine, we always have been and we always will be. Thankfully, understanding that we give our ego its power, also means we can take it back.

When we acknowledge that expectations, judgments and dramas are just tools of the ego, we can take back our power and begin to detach from its hold. We start to see the harm caused by our expectations, the falseness of our judgments, and the pretense of the dramas we so readily perpetuate. When we detach from our ego illusions, we begin to feel our connection with the soul again, and we can finally start to co-create the lives we really came here to live.

The truth of course is that we are always connected to our soul. We are never alone – ever. Our guides are always with us, and our beloved deceased and ascended masters always come when we call upon them. They guide us and provide experiences for us to learn and grow. Knowing and accepting that the soul is ever present and that part of the Divine resides within us is sometimes met with skepticism and doubt. So ask our soul to provide evidence and release your doubts when you receive your answers. Trust and you will be rewarded.

Once we accept the presence of the soul in our lives, we reach a state of gratitude for the divine timing of life. We understand that the soul is sending exactly what we require at that very moment. That life is not an accident. There are no coincidences. Everything happens for a reason and part of us knows what that reason is, because we helped create it.

We are able to co-create with our soul through our thoughts, feelings and actions because part of the Divine resides within us. We have the power to change our lives and start living our life purpose. We always have.

Once we awaken to this power, we are able to co-create with awareness. By consciously connecting to the soul (usually but not always in meditation) and requesting the desired outcomes in our life, we are co-creating with the soul. When we ask a question, the soul always answers. So listen to your answers and let them guide your actions. When your life begins to shift and change, trust that the soul is supporting you and give thanks for its intervention. Don’t judge what comes your way, after all who are we to question the wisdom and ways of the soul. Remember life is not a straight path and the soul is working with you to create what you want.

“You get what you get, and you don’t get upset” is such a simple phrase and yet it holds so much spiritual truth about detachment, acceptance, trust, and gratitude. When we accept what the soul sends us, it allows us to feel gratitude for the amazing life we share with it. We can graciously accept the roller coaster of life because we know that our soul is working with us and together you are creating something great. So if you hear a rhyming chant being used by people around you or something keeps catching your eye, don’t ignore it. Rather accept it as another gift from the soul and celebrate that our soul is always connecting to us, we just have to listen.