In the course of anyone’s lifetime, “bad” things are guaranteed to happen. Yet there is nothing wrong with these “bad” things—nor is there anything “right” about them either. They simply happen. They are neither good nor bad, right nor wrong, and human judgment is best left out of the equation. It is much more useful and accurate to see these events as challenges. Challenges, in all sizes, shapes and forms, are essential to an evolving life; they are essential to a spiritual life; they are essential to our journey here on earth, and they are not going away.
Nor are we “bad” because something challenging crosses our path. We do not need to blame ourselves. Challenges can sometimes be consequences, but they are not punishments hurled at us from above because we are bad. We need to do away with this myth, as well as the myth that “bad things should only happen to bad people”; or “life is wrong when bad things happen to good people”. Challenges cross everyone’s path. All challenges, regardless of their source, are opportunities for us to grow; they are opportunities for us to take our power back from what we are afraid of; opportunities for us to become powerful and authentic and find out who we really are.
Challenges enable us to become powerful because they automatically trigger our deepest issues and force us to face our fears. Notice that one of the first things you do when such a challenge occurs is to go into a story about what happened and even what the future will be like. Your mind creates a story loaded with your own personal, fear-based distortions that have always colored your world. Challenges magnify your story, and so give you the opportunity to recognize what your story is, see your distorted thinking, and free yourself from it. It is only by changing our perceptions, thinking, and behavior that we can move forward fearlessly in the direction of our dreams. It is our fear-based thinking that holds us back from living a life that we love, and challenges are what give us the opportunity to confront and change that thinking.
We can’t change or control what happens to us, or the challenges that we may encounter ahead. But we can pay attention to how we respond to them. Meeting challenges responsibly is hard work. Challenges show us what spiritual homework we still need to do; they show us where we are at spiritually. When a challenge hits us, we need to take our attention off why it happened, and focus on what now? We need to put our full attention on ourselves, what we are feeling and thinking, and how we are taking care of ourselves.
Once we are paying attention, we will begin to notice what our mind is up to. Are we resisting what has already happened? Are we slipping into our conditioning to blame or feel outrage, shame, guilt or self-pity? If so, then we have left the present moment and are caught in our story. Or, instead, are we able to feel the authentic human emotions of grief, anger, and confusion without making up a story? In other words, can we use this challenge to learn how to grieve without going into pity or self-pity? Can we feel our authentic anger at the human journey without going into outrage, self-righteousness, or blame? Can we accept there is much we will never know about the human journey, and feel our confusion without going into shame or guilt? We will need to remind ourselves again and again that we are not our thoughts. Challenges provide us with the opportunity to notice what our mind is trying to hook us with. Through our response to challenges, we are able to evolve our thinking, and thus evolve the way we respond to life and the way we use our spiritual energy. When we can observe what our mind is making up, we are then in a position to change it, and use our energy more responsibly.
The only things we can really control and change in this life are our own perceptions, thought patterns and behavior. The fact is, that’s enough. That’s our ticket into creating a life we love, and challenges can provide the ride that will take us there.
Contributed by Carol Aubrey
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