When faced with bad news, there’s a natural reaction that almost automatically kicks in.

It’s about making the bad news the totality of our reality. We feel discomfort, pain, despair, because we have just been told that something does not conform to the idea(s) we had about our life. And we often take this to the extreme. We amplify the discomfort, the pain, the despair. It becomes all we see around us and perceive within us. We go to a dark place.

And that is fine.

As long as we know that is not true. The discomfort, the pain, the despair, they are just a part of our reality. A small part indeed. So the following step, that is all but automatic and instictive, is to look at things around us for what they really are.

Ok, we did not get the job, and still we have that hobby we always wanted to dedicate time to.

Ok, our relationship is shattered, and still we have a dear friend that deeply cares about us.

Ok, our body is not working as it should, and still our mind is present, vibrant, open.

The second step is not about being optimistic. It’s about realizing that things happen to us all the time, a neverending flow. And that focusing all our attention, energy, commitment to a single one of them, no matter how bad, is a limit to expressing the potential of each life.

The bad news is you’re falling through the air, nothing to hang on to, no parachute. The good news is, there’s no ground.

Chögyam Trungpa