By Leo Babauta | Source

Life can be chaotic, and we can get thrown off our center by difficult challenges. That’s not a problem! The difficulty comes when we’re not able to come back to our center.

So today, I’d like to share two specific practices that I’ve found to be really helpful, in bringing me back to my center when I get thrown off by life’s challenges … and in some cases, staying centered instead of getting thrown into a tailspin:

1. Focus on what’s in your control. Most of the time, we’re thrown off our center because we want things to be different — we want other people to act different, we want different circumstances. But most often, that’s not under our control. We can’t control how people behave or react, we can’t control the world. So it can be really calming to figure out what’s under your control, and just focus on that. What’s the smallest thing you can focus on that’s under your control?
2. Love more. When things aren’t going our way, we get upset, frustrated or discouraged because we’re attached to a certain outcome. There’s desire for the outcome to be what we want. But what if, instead, we could desire many outcomes? And be OK with being disappointed or frustrated with not getting one specific outcome. The practice is to love more outcomes. For example, if I’m going on a run, maybe I want to run really fast and feel really good and have nice weather. But what if I could love the rain, my discomfort, and however I run, even if it’s not what I was hoping for? Love more things, love the things we reject, love a wider range of experiences, and the attachment to a specific outcome gets loosened.

These are deep practices that take … practice! Try them today, and see what you can discover.