Namaste.
I spent most of my spiritual awakening demonizing the ideas of rationality,
Discipline,
Commitment and relevant to this session,
Struggle.
And so of course the universe being the universe taught me these lessons again and again until I was even aware enough to be open to embodying them.
I had major themes around commitment and completing projects or ideas,
Or making decisions that seemed to last or ground.
In hindsight what did I expect?
I had closed off an entire portion of frequency that was simply seeking me to accept it.
What habits in your life are not really working for you anymore?
A lot of the time it comes down to a simple idea that we love to keep at bay.
Discipline,
Routine,
Practice.
These words can make our free spirited selves feel immediately trapped,
Yet the paradox is that these concepts actually give our spirits the freedom that they are seeking.
It is only in hindsight,
As I reflect,
That I see that I was trapped in the cycles of these lessons.
By introducing,
Integrating these other parts of me,
I have actually been freer to do the things that I have always wanted to.
Our current spiritual wellness culture perhaps portrays an idea that if things aren't easy,
Effortless or in flow,
Then it can't be right.
It isn't aligned,
So it must not be our path.
When this is our foundation for looking at the world,
We will of course look at anything that seems like a problem,
As a sign to divert to somewhere else.
This inevitably takes us on a journey of dodging anything that feels remotely difficult and anything that doesn't make us feel good.
Our main teacher is our experience and it was when I began to embody this way of living that I began to notice the extremely limiting consequences of the way of life I had been living.
I wanted peace,
Effortlessness and to feel good.
I felt struggle was an older way,
So I made choices that felt easier,
Made me feel comfortable.
Yet these easier choices led to more lack than I had ever experienced before,
In relationships,
My life purpose,
My finances,
My own potential.
As all of these areas require growth,
Growth requires courage,
To face what is holding us back,
What we are afraid of and to move into new areas that feel unfamiliar.
This was something I wasn't allowing myself to do,
Because I wasn't willing to challenge myself.
I discovered the issue here was my polarisation of the word struggle itself.
Struggle essentially means it is challenging,
Yet perhaps more importantly,
It is creating discomfort.
It is through the discomfort that we realise something needs to change,
It is a natural desire to want to live a life free of struggles,
Yet this isn't realistic,
This isn't the human experience.
It also doesn't value what struggle means and can offer us.
The struggles that we face are experiences of contrast,
Opportunities to access untapped parts within.
This is how we develop our strength,
Inner power,
Have new opportunities,
Adventures,
Experiences we wouldn't have before.
When we resist the struggles of life,
Seeing them as punishments,
We can experience suffering.
Suffering is often called a resistance to what is.
It is also sustained by being unwilling to do what is being asked.
I know this well from my own experience with suffering.
Today I seek out the struggles as opportunities for me to upgrade.
I no longer try to just deal with the struggles and challenges I already have.
I want more.
Because my end goal is the same,
To experience a happier,
More peaceful,
More fulfilled life.
Yet this idea isn't as polarised as it was before,
It now includes the ups and downs of the rollercoaster.
I now know that this doesn't happen by maintaining the status quo either,
They happen if I allow myself to be stretched by experiences and opportunities.
When we accept the struggles of life as the universe's grand teaching platform for elevation,
We realise there are many paths out of our predicaments,
If we can choose to face and move through our struggles.
Blessings on your journey,
Namaste.
