I wish I could tell them everything will be fine by the time they wake up tomorrow, but it won’t.

I wish I could ease their burden by taking away or fixing some significant part of their problems, but that’s just not possible.

I wish I knew exactly the right words to say: one magic phrase to help them through this. Sadly, I’m not magician.

It’s a horrible thing to be going through for anyone. I feel terrible that there’s no way I can fix things for them and make everything better. Even sending money would only bring mild and very temporary relief. The only thing I can offer them that will make a difference, is my time. By talking through with them what undoubtedly must feel like one of the worst times in their life.

I know for sure that when I went through hard times myself, it wasn’t so much what people said, but that they still wanted to talk to me. My friends and family didn’t have all the answers. Often they struggled to fully understand how much pain and suffering I was going through.

But the fact that they tried made the world of difference.

Out of all the conversations, there will be that one word or idea that seemed to provide just a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. Talking to them was often uncomfortable as I would have to be more open and honest than I would really have liked, and I’m sure at times, they felt that way too.

I realised that it was those people that were my light at the end of the tunnel. Without them I would have never found my way out. I hope, in some way, I can be that light for my friends who are in need right now.

Sometimes in life, you get shat upon. Sometimes, there’s no avoiding it or the messy clean-up job that follows.

As a teen, I owned a shirt that said:

“I’m always in the shit –
Only the depth varies!”

It can be a great metaphor for what life ‘throws’ at you. Still: there are times when you half expect it, and other moments where the timing could not be any worse.

A few weeks ago – I was shat on, quite literally.

I was at a party, which was the first major opportunity for me to meet some new people locally, and I was quite excited that there were fellow motorbike-riders and vegetarians present! It was outdoors, since the Scots are quick to make the most of any fair weather, and there was both a big BBQ and a smaller ‘veggie’ one heating up.
I spent most of the night clustered around one or other of the BBQs trying to stay warm, and was by the smaller of the two when a bird flying above let it’s bowel contents go…right on the crown of my head.
I was of course blissfully ignorant of the risk – right up until the point of impact; and disbelief (“this couldn’t happen to me right now!”) warred with shock only long enough for me to jump up & rush inside, but not before the news had started circulating through the 30-something gathered.

I wish I could say it was the 1st time*, & I can’t say with any certainty that it will be the last. But what are the odds of being shat on by a bird flying (not sitting – but flying!) overhead, twice in your life?

It is said to be lucky. And someone joked about rushing out to buy a lottery ticket. But as I was upstairs in the bathroom having the front half of my hair washed in a tiny sink by a very caring but equally inebriated woman, I commented that this must be said simply to help make the dirtied one feel better!

However, apart from a bit of embarrassment that it happened in front of such a crowd, I was quite bemused by the whole episode and making jokes about people having a unique reason to remember me! It would have been really easy to get totally upset about it, to cry, and to feel too embarrassed to return to the party. But I was determined to make the most of the evening that I had been enjoying until rudely interrupted, and wasn’t going to let a bit of bird-luck get in my way. The woman helping me wash my hair remarked that I seemed so calm about the whole thing, and asked what I did. She laughed when I told her I was a lifecoach, and said that quite explained it!

Joking aside – what I did in that moment – was to notice that I had a choice. I couldn’t choose to undo the fact that I had been shat upon, but I could choose to have a miserable end to my evening, or a wonderful one. This is not a choice that is solely available to coaches, nor is it about ‘positive thinking’. At no point did I feel like thanking the bird that inadvertently caused this. I didn’t even buy into the ‘it’s lucky’ idea. I simply chose my reaction to a situation I couldn’t have avoided.

It would also have been easy to get really angry with the bird, or with a party being held outside on a cold evening, or the injustice in the world! And there is a great piece of wisdom in one of the 55 Concepts that I’ve mentioned before:

“People [birds, life] don’t do things TO you;
They do them FOR themselves.”

The bird didn’t choose to deliberately dump its waste on my head. The bird simply needed to relieve itself, and I was perhaps in the wrong place at the wrong time.

What choice will you make, when life next dumps you in an unpleasant mess?

P.S. (*The 1st time – about 5yrs ago in London, I did let it did spoil my day!)