If you are alive on this planet now, you are bound to experience the challenge that rocks your world. It’s inevitable.
Shift happens.
In trying to make sense of it all, your mind will become a battle zone for all contradictory reasons and swirling thoughts. You will second-guess, question, and argue with yourself; the ego vs. the Spirit. And your body will reap the side effects of the carnage. Your stomach will tie itself in knots reducing your digestive system’s ability to nourish your very cells. Unbridled emotions can be the Trojan horse that causes pain and hampers your zest for life. Mind into matter.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. You always have a choice. Every challenge can be an opportunity from which to learn and move yourself forward. First know that swirling thoughts are normal. Also know that you are not your thoughts. You are much more. The ego-mind often holds the reins that controls thoughts and emotions because that is the ego’s job. But there is always the Spirit.
The Ego and the Spirit are somewhat antagonistic. The ego seeks happiness in the guise of more (money, power, prestige, success, love). The Spirit is content with just enough. The ego feeds on prevailing opinions. The Spirit is looks within. The ego is a know-it-all. The Spirit is all-knowing.
The ego isn’t the enemy but it does seek attention – your attention. It can hold you hostage with questions without answers. Did you handle the situation the right way? What if you had done it differently?
The real question is: do the details really matter? All the time you spend focusing on past details, you choose to live there. Life happens in the NOW. You cannot change anything if you focus in the past. The past likes to repeat itself and come back stronger each time until it slaps you upside the head. Until you take notice. However, neither the past nor the ego are the enemies. They are merely attempting to teach you something about yourself.
In the chaos of a good challenge, we become afraid to question what is really happening, afraid to awaken to the truth that has revealed itself. It is often easier to feed false impressions and maintain an image rather than to dig deep because inside we know the truth will shatter our grand illusion and take us in a direction out of our control and toward pain and suffering. After all, the ego is in this struggle to survive, not to be squandered.
But the pain does not have to define us. Pain can inform. Pain doesn’t have to be a bad thing if we choose to reshape it and transform it into wisdom. The point of self-realization or “awakening” is the point at which the ego is changed.
Healing becomes a choice to either continue in the same direction, the direction of the ego, or to break new ground in the direction of the Spirit. Choosing to purposely alter your path is done at great risk of the unknown. It is a journey into the Self from the surface to the depths, from the seen to the unseen, from the physical body to the energy of the mind and the spirit.
The Universal Law of Attraction shows us that we attract challenges to teach us who we are. In reality, we attract what we are. Do not fear the message of a good challenge.
The challenge is the Trojan horse, a vessel crafted to deliver a message. This is your opportunity to move from the inside out, and to move forward on your healing journey.
*Excerpts taken from the book, Nature of Healing, Heal the Body, Heal the Planet.
