Or put another way, do we have the experience or does the experience “have” us?!
Anyone care to share a story about a negative experience that tried to own you, but you spun it positive and owned it instead?
© 2026 – SoulSequel
22 responses to ““Experience is not what happens to us; it is what we do with what happens to us” – Aldous Huxley”
Not only that, but everything others around us have, and around them have, and around them until it encompasses the entire world!
It is like a stone thrown into the water and the rings of waves spread out from there. What we do starts with us, then spreads to others around us.
Not only that, but also to the point of seeing other’s behaviors / successes / failures and learning from them.
So any thoughts on dealing with the negative concentric rings that those around us may throw, while initiating our own positive concentric rings into the pond?
The waves that erode the shores of the fixed Islands just passed under the ship at anchor. (That’s a pirate ship of course
)
No, I don’t because I live in a bubble where there are no negative people casting negative rings. Even the pirate ship is in calm waters.
Well here’s hoping no unexpected storms blow in!
As for myself I don’t mind surfing a few waves!
Immortal history…
……..can’t think of anything. I keep running over rabbits. How do you spin that to posi-tickles? I guess I’m taking care of the dumb ones? They don’t give me a chance. They’re suicidal or something…
For a while I agreed with my friend that it’s just that they’re used to using a zig-zag defensive maneuver, but I’ve had them cross from the other side of the street & beeline for where the rubber meets the road.
I think it’s the neonicotinoids givin’ ’em bad trips.
remember that post of mine about looking forward vs back? thats the thing, i feel like the negative experiences in my life/past draw me back in. thats when they own me, when i dwell back. so im trying to alter that.
but also, in response to your question, i do have an experience that i spun around. sort of. perspective wise anyway. i recently started a new job, in a retirement centre as per usual. the learning curve was hard though, a different setting, a different system. starting anything new, leaving the familiar behind can be very stressful! but i have 5 + years experience with this work so it shouldnt be that hard, right? but every position is slightly different. anyway some of my new coworkers have been carrying a lot of stress, definitely showing that in their actions and ways of teaching. a lot of negativity and frustration. so for the first few shifts on my own, i was feeling a Lot of stress, and negativity. whcih i think i just picked up from them, and which i didnt like because part of the whole switch to a new facility was to get past that feeling at work. and it is beyond counter productive…
so the last couple of days (this mama worked through the long weekend, but thats ok got a few days off now) i tried to have a different perspective. it is a fast paced job with a lot of responsibilities, and there are moments when things can feel out of control, or stressful in a time oriented way. but i consciously made effort not to feel badly in those moments. to laugh about it a bit, or just work through it. to encourage my coworkers and check in with them, to not get caught up in the circles of complaints btwen and about each other… to kind of decide that even though it might be time for lunch and half the residents are in the room and i dont have mugs down yet and the coffee isnt ready and oh look here comes the soup and i think im on my own for the first 10 minutes AAAAGH! no ! i did not resort to AAAAAAGH . instead i just Didnt Feel Bad about it, kept moving and doing what i needed to. it isnt rocket science or deep rooted stuff im sharing here, but it was effort and i did it. and i think it showed. a couple of them commented that the meals were nice and easy going this weekend, not chaotic. we worked well together. and i had a chance to actually bond with the residents instead of running around like crazed chickens or something. and i didnt feel the anxiety i have been lately. i think ill even sleep tonight :D
well spun id say!
Any negative spirit ( if you understand that connotation) ” consumes” what is good and with that energy tries to reproduce itself.
Someone ” sins against us” when they successfully plant that negative seed that they carry, in us. It starts consuming what is good and reproducing itself. (Consider what has been called ” the cycle of sin” and ” the cycle of abuse”)
Escape is found in forgiving the other for any hurt (big or small); and then this opens the door for positive growth and learning in us. (Christ’s teachings excel in this, even against the worst trespasses. My personal experiences in this are why I am such a proponent )
Learn and grow positively from a negative spirit and you utterly defeat it. Rather than stealing your energy you benefit from its energy. This leaves you open and available (and empowered) to minister positively to others: perhaps inviting them to explore the same process and pass it on in proper time. (And there is positive energy, positive growth for the practitioner at every step along the way!
I liked your story. It very effectively illustrates this process. And the more we exercise this process the stronger and more profcient in it we become. Negative spiritual seeds just bounce off us; but we still gain from their energy in trying.
Or if they do penetrate and start to take root we are quicker to recognize, excise and heal from them — and grow stronger from this as well!
This is why no evil spirit can defeat a good spirit in us.
i wish i lived like this all the time, but it is a success and that is Something, right?
thank you, these are very good words. i feel like i need to have them with me, to re read and absorb more. i appreciate the time and thought you take mister!
Each time it’s received it wrings even more positive energy out of an abuse situation I thought was purely negative at the time.
When we have those threads about going back in time in changing some negative in your past — it is why I say I would not change one thing! It would mean erasing so much benefit to myself and to so many others.
sometimes i wonder “who i would be” minus the traumas, minus the life story. would i still be essentially who i am today? what is innate vs grown? you know? i guess im good with who i am, now im more healthy, i can handle what is in my past. so now, well, id change a few choices to be honest, but i can live with them as they stand. i know, i have to. but, i can live well with them.
sure :D
It’s very ” whatever doesn’t kill you will makes you stronger”. And this has to do with attitude and choice.
We can choose to let some toxic event or trauma from the past slowly kill us over decades. Or we can spend those decades and learning to overcome it; to ” take it and make it our strength”.
There’s good analogy in trees and wood. The most beautiful pieces of wood with the most amazing grain almost always come from trees that have endured some kind of stressor. Burl wood is from a tree that refused to give in to a disease or insect. Bird’s-eye maple is from trees with a genetic defect. Soft wood from northern climates is more durable and of higher quality than that from Southern latitudes, because the harsh winters stress them. And the longest living trees known are the Bristlecone Pines that live on California peaks; in some of the harshest and most unforgiving environments around. One has been aged at 5,066 years of age.
This tree was a seedling when the Bronze Age begin. People marveled at Stonehenge which at the time consisted only of a circular earthen bank and a ditch. Pottery was the gauge of a culture’s advancement. Written language was first being explored.
So perhaps the value of stress and hardship is seriously underrated in the strengthening of organisms!?
Then there is this…
@immortal_pirate I don’t think that I would have survived being a POW in Vietnam.
@ladybarbara
You may under-sell yourself on this point.
You quite obviously have a survivor’s spirit. And one never knows just how brightly this will shine and what it will see you through . . . until you’re actually there staring it in the face.
I remember I used to consider myself quite fragile; thinking I was just a loser and ill-equipped for life that I would be experiencing so many trials and injuries while others seemed to be coasting through life. I thought they were the strong ones.
It was only after the startling realization of just how uncommon and serious the trials I faced were, that I started considering myself strong. Strong enough perhaps to overcome any trial; any loss; any injury.
It gives me a zeal for life that is intoxicating at times. :grin:
@griz I was once “trapped” in an abusive situation with a battering, drunken husband. He escalated the “trap” he thought he had me in by being vigilant and on top of me at all times. He broke all of my connections to friends and family and held me hostage in his drunken nightmare world. But, he couldn’t be on me 24/7 and there were times he passed out drunk. I used those times to set up my escape. I got a storage unit and stockpiled what I needed to start life anew. He was not going to allow me to take my clothing in an escape, so I stored my clothing in my storage unit and replaced the clothing in my closet with old things my house cleaning business clients had donated to me. I had the fake purse that I carried and the real purse was already out of the house. I had sets of extra keys buried in safe places and all paper documents in my storage unit.
I was ready to leave. But then, I got playful and smug. I found appliances that were the same brand as our appliances — selling for pennies because they did not work. I smuggled our appliances into my storage and replaced them with broken and useless units. He did not notice because he did not use the toaster, toaster oven, microwave, or coffee maker. My deception made me smile each day. Then, before I left, I found an old broken Sony TV and replaced his TV. Then came the big fight where I ran out of the house. He had my purse and shouted after me that I was not going to be able to get any of my clothing !!! He had everything and I was out in the cold !!!!!!!! “Drat” (snicker snicker) I rented an apartment and went on with my life. He found out that none of the appliances worked ——– well, imagine that!
Trap me and I will get slithery.
However, I don’t know if I could survive a POW trap.
@ladybarbara
POW experiences are dastardly things. And “overcoming” the experience might not mean physically surviving it. (But remember I’m of the strong conviction that physical death is a survivable thing!).
And I grew up in the era where there were a number of Christian ex POW inspirational speakers from the Vietnam war doing the lecture circuit. Perhaps that’s a key part of where I picked up my survivor/overcomer spirit?
So… as a guy I see as a neophyte, yeah….
I think your problem is you count experience which has never happened to you as experience.
I have you on my ignore as a fucking idiot conceited moron list, because exactly this. You talk, but don’t have anything to back that up.
Not even enough to make me yank myself off to…
But, yeah…congratulate your self, for your lack of experience. Maybe enter the olympics or some shit, and make it all the more fucking funny. Kind of your style, I think, right?
@Lucifer Rising
“By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.” – Confucius
A particularly attractive element of Native spirituality for me, is that with a proper mindset everything that has ever happened to the species CAN be as if it happened to us . . . unto our drawing upon wisdom for the sake of personal (and therefore species) growth. (With our downfall being NOT learning wisdom from these past events and having to repeat them)
I have no shortage of “the bitterest” method of learning wisdom.
I am not excluded for one moment from “the easiest”.
And God has me on a path of greater exploration of “the noblest”.