She recalled how exhausted and upset she was at the time. She suffered tremendously as she tried to figure out how to help this child. She was worried, often sick to her stomach. She had sleepless nights. She was riddled with fear in her body, mind and spirit--always living in "worst-case-scenario" thinking. She said, "Trish, I wish I hadn't been in a panic those years. I wish I hadn't made my self sick to my stomach every day. I wasted so much life-energy fretting and feeling afraid of my child's future. Everything ended up turning out for my child. His path was just very different than most kids. He struggled all along the way but eventually found a way forward."
Too often, when we experience life struggles we add complexity too it. We add layers of thinking around it that increases our suffering. We torment ourselves in our minds. We make ourselves physically sick and emotionally distraught as we navigate difficulty.
We infuse self-judgment into the situation thinking that there must be something wrong with who we are because we have something challenging going on in our lives. Too often, we feel like we are the only ones that are having a hard time. But, we aren't. Just because the people around us put on smiles and pretend everything is okay, doesn't mean their lives are perfect or better. In some way, shape or form, they too have their day to day struggles. Underneath the masks and in their private moments, they too have panic and tears.
We add layers of fearful thinking to the difficulty. We project worst-case scenario outcomes into the future and thus live in a constant feeling of exacerbated trauma and panic. We literally exhaust our mind, body and spirit with the fear.
The reality for each of us is this: Life brings each and everyone of us intense, difficult challenges on a regular basis. Does this mean something is wrong with us? Does this mean something is wrong with our lives?
No.
Our greatest wounds and difficulties become our greatest gifts to the planet. We are meant to experience a variety of intense periods of challenges to work through. These times of crisis can serve to strengthen us, to expand us, to cause us to deepen our views and grow our understanding. It is the experiencing, surpassing and overcoming that allow us the depths of the human experience....and the eventual compassion for others and wisdom to offer to the world at large.
If you are experiencing hardship, I have some good news for you today.
Your life IS on schedule. Your journey is unfolding just as it is meant to. Your "personal development plan" is coming about in the perfect way, at the appointed time. You are being grown!
So, could it be that we might be able to experience times of difficulty in a new way? What if life's difficult moments don't have to be filled with intense suffering?
What if rather than resisting and fighting what life brings our way, we began to simply open to it?
What if our spirit could relax into the situation rather than tensing up and cringing?
What if instead of judging ourselves and feeling there is something wrong with who we are, we instead realized that there is a Divine gift in every experience put on Life's path?
What if it is ALL meant for our highest good, growth and development--whether it is a mountain-top experience that exhilarates us or a dark-valley experience that confounds us?
Think of it this way. When you hear older people look back 20 years in their lives and describe the difficulty, they can do so with a deep perspective. They can see that no matter what it is that happened, somehow and someway, they made it through! They also often describe how the circumstances were used in some significant way to forward their journey and get them to new vistas and opportunities they could never have guessed would come about. They often say, "If only I knew then what I know now, I would not have been so upset, distraught and fearful during that period of my life."
What if rather than waiting for 20 years to have that depth of understanding, we began to choose that "20-year looking back view" in the here and now?
Let's stop judging the pain and difficulties as "something is wrong" or "this is bad." Instead, we can choose to know that no matter how things might appear, It is ALL RIGHT at ALL TIMES in ALL WAYS. It is more perfectly designed and woven together than we can comprehend.
We could look at our present trials and say--this situation may not feel good to me. But, if Life has brought the challenge, then I must have what it takes to make it through this situation one second at a time. We could refuse to judge ourselves and become fearful--and instead, open our hearts and mind knowing that the wisdom we need, the resources that need to appear will some how and some way come about. We could save ourselves tremendous exhaustion and choose to have faith and hope knowing that a Divine Grace is just as present in a time of difficulty as it is in a time of success and ease.
Let us all open to the idea today that it can be well with us and we can connect to peace no matter what we are facing.
I'm practicing these ideas with you.
With a smile and a hug,
Patricia Omoqui, The Thought Dr.
www.patriciaomoqui.com
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