Be Thankful For Your Toughest Experiences

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger

luzPhoto by Andrea Garibay

After the initial “bliss” we experience from our first spiritual “glimpses,” we come to believe the spiritual path has only treats for us. This is, of course, a misunderstanding.

For anyone having some practical experience on the spiritual path, disappointments are not dreaded, but expected.

During our earlier spiritual episodes, it’s not uncommon to feel ecstatic about everything. For many years as an example, we’ve been tortured by our thoughts and emotions, always identifying with them — and now, we feel free.

We’ve never noticed how beautiful trees were, we’ve never appreciated the silence of Nature, we’ve never saw people we always condemned in a different ways — now they look more humane, and wait, why is our heart doing this? We feel compassion!

And so on.

It’s true that a new energy is emerging, but it’s also true that the older energies are still there — and they’re still strong.

And it’s due to this strength that we attach ourselves to our growing spiritual nature. Attachment is how the ego/self-image finds security. So we become attached to our newly found spiritual flame.

And while things may go smoothly for some time; we may feel healthier, more alive, more able to connect with others, and love them unconditionally as an example — it doesn’t take long before something hits us.

Perhaps we thought we transcended anger, but suddenly, out of nowhere, we’re triggered. Anger arises, and it’s an unpleasant surprise. We condemn anger, and we repress this anger.

Without realizing it, spirituality has come to mean “sunshine and rainbows” for us, so we deny everything else.

While it may seem to work, eventually, we realize that not everything is blissful. We want to remain “high,” but the people around us are “annoying,” or somehow some event happens, and brings us down.

This is Life’s way of inviting us to grow even bigger. But it requires humility to face the facts, and accept that there is still room to grow. At such a place in our journey, we may choose to deny, and keep escaping in our little “feel good” heaven. But we’d be doing ourselves a disservice by staying in our small box.

We can’t know what’s inside of us unless we accept to look at ours unconscious reactions to the outer world. As long as we condemn anger or fear as an example, labeling them as less spiritual, sure, we’ll be happy for sometime in our perfect box, but it’s still a box, and there’s no growth from living in limitation.

Instead of feeling bad about ourselves for observing ourselves getting angry or resentful because someone insulted us in our back — let’s be thankful for the event.

Without people, events and circumstances — there’s no way for us to understand ourselves, and if our spiritual growth matters to us, we must be willing to look at all the darkness inside ourselves we thought to have transcended for free.

Ignorance is bliss as the saying goes, but ignorance is expensive, and with denial and escapes, we block our growth.

We always have the choice.

To refuse to look at things for what they are, and put ourselves to sleep by forcing spiritual platitudes into our ears. Or. To accept to look at things for what they are, and yes, it won’t always be pleasant — but the growth that results is worth it. That’s why we’re on this path after all — to grow, to reach our highest potential!

Let’s be thankful for all those people who perfectly played their roles in our lives, let’s be thankful for all those events and situations that opened our eyes. Adversity never happens to discourage us, quite the opposite, adversaries in whatever shape or form push us into thinking, behaving and living in newer ways.

Adversity pushes us out of the boundaries we’ve always lived in, it makes us go outside our comfort zone — and only through walking into uncharted territories, do we learn our life lessons, and realize just how strong we’ve always been.

This, is growth.

As a final note.

If you’ve been meditating, using affirmations and thinking positively for a while now, without necessarily integrating spiritual truths at a soul level even though you understand them intellectually — I’ve written a book to help you understand the main blocks to true spiritual growth, and how to overcome them. Check Spiritual Transition here.