The Gift of Challenge

Isn’t it nice, those moments when life feels easy? Things flow smoothly, you feel a sense of balance and circumstances just don’t seem too difficult? While these moments certainly provide a nice break and sometimes, especially these days, feel much too rare, I also know that there are many gifts that come with challenge - those times when things don’t feel so easy. As I’ve gone deeper and deeper on this journey of healing, I have become much more aware of the many layers of hidden, suppressed, subconscious wounds, beliefs and traumas that inform the functioning of our bodies, as well as our mental and emotional patterns and habits. These ingrained ways of being stay in control until they are rooted out, brought into awareness and consciously shifted. But how, you might ask, can we bring things into awareness that are not in our conscious minds? Though there are a variety of methods, one key way life supports us in doing this is through challenge.
 
One of the main ways that I view my life’s journey is through the lens of self- and soul-growth. I definitely believe that we choose to incarnate into this earthly body with one of the main objectives being learning, growth and evolution. I suppose I often get a little too hung up on this point, as certainly there are other objectives too, including just experience of all kinds – experiencing joy, pleasure, pain, separation, love, relationship – but I digress. Coming from the perspective that we have chosen to be here and that we are here to learn and grow gives us a way to more fully understand the purpose of challenge and suffering in our lives, and offers us the opportunity to tune into trust, right timing and an expanded perspective. It gives meaning to the places where we might otherwise curl up in a ball and want to quit, or get hung up on the idea that life or the world is out to get us. When we know that all that we go through is happening for a reason, it makes it so much easier to bear. We can choose to feel like heroes in our lives, persevering and staying the course, rather than becoming victims and/or giving up. Though we often may forget, wondering why life has to be so hard, from this perspective, challenge is supporting our growth, rather than getting in the way of it.
 
In addition to being a powerful tool in supporting our overall growth as a soul, challenge can serve us more specifically as well. When things are easy, when we feel we are flowing with life, all those habits, beliefs, wounds and traumas that reside in our subconscious and take up space in our body are generally pretty quiet. We may not notice them or forget they are even there. As long as we feel at ease, we are lulled into a peace that may make us think our work is done, our wounds are healed and we have evolved. The moment this gets challenged though – we are triggered, we get sick, something goes wrong - we realize the truth: there is a lot more stuff in there for us to work on! And we would never be made aware of it without it being stirred up, brought to the surface, and sometimes, not-so subtly shoved in our face. Every time something comes up in our lives, it is an opportunity to see, resolve and heal. We are given these opportunities, again and again, to face our issues, to deal with the stuff we are carrying and to heal it piece-by-piece, mainly through experiences that challenge us, feel difficult and bring up uncomfortable emotions. We need to be able to see it and feel it to heal it.
 
If we are truly here to experience though, then even our assessment of what circumstances or emotions are “difficult” or “challenging” loses meaning. These words are full of judgements and attachments, carrying our ideas about what is pleasant and unpleasant, what we want to feel and what we don’t. We’ve been taught that certain emotions are good and others bad, that we should all be striving for a life of abundance and ease and happiness. If we recognize that all of it is serving us, however, the good, the “bad”, the messy, the happy, the chaotic, then we can drop the judgement and value all experience for what it has to offer, even if it doesn’t always feel comfortable. We can stop trying to get “there” – wherever there is, and be present in the journey. Here is where the gold is. The messy, imperfect, non-dreamy present moment, which may feel uncomfortable, difficult or challenging.
 
It's not hard to imagine that at some point in the future, life could be easy. We’ll be set up to enjoy life, live comfortably and, finally, be able to relax. Ah, doesn’t that sound dreamy. Maybe. It also could be boring. AND, if you haven’t done your self-healing, and likely, even if you have, the universe may just have some surprises in store for you. It’s not going to stop offering you opportunities to heal, so try not to get too attached to that whole life-of-ease thing. Just when you sit back to relax, you’re likely to get gifted yet another opportunity to work through your stuff. It may not be easy, it may not always feel comfortable, but if we can fully experience it and take it in, rather than resist and avoid, we will heal, we will learn and we will grow. Allowing life to be what it is, challenge and all, is the only way we can ever hope to finally experience some peace.