Many would say that built into all good fortune is misfortune and built into all misfortune is fortune.  All of the falls we experience throughout our lives have a component of fortune even if we can’t see it at the time.  Whether we like them or not, we often learn and grow more from the challenging experiences in our lives and (as much as many of us would prefer to avoid them completely) these experiences often form the very fabric of our being.

As we each travel life’s path our quest becomes less about trying to eliminate the challenges in our lives but rather learning to sing in the rain and dance in the storms or at the very least be willing to venture into a storm knowing that we will experience something valuable that we will take with us on our onward journey.  Elizabeth Kubler-Ross said, “If you shield the mountain of the wind storms you will never see the beauty of the carvings” and as with our lives, our challenges often reveal the many beautiful aspects of ourselves that without them we would never see.

Sounds easy right?  We all know that it can be tough to see challenges in this way but there are different approaches to dealing with challenging situations in our lives and some can bring us less pain than others if we are prepared to be open to them.

There are three ways that we can choose to increase our self-awareness resulting from a difficult situation:

Firstly we can increase our awareness through suffering – we can say to ourselves ‘I will go through this experience then I will look back on it and see the benefit and grow through having suffered’;

Secondly, there is the possibility of reducing our suffering by seeing what is about to happen and get the lesson before we experience the full degree of suffering.

The third way to awareness offers us the opportunity to negate the suffering by getting out in front of it and stopping it before it gets to us; anticipating it.  A way of awareness that is so elevated that it enables us to see the unfolding of life.  Carl Jung calls this synchronicity, “A trust in life that enables us to deflect things that come our way, a knowing that we will get you through”.  We can play the whole scene in front of ourselves and get the message, decide on our new action without ever experiencing the suffering.

As with many things in life its not about the experience but moreso about what you do with the experience that defines who you are and who you will become.

Here’s to a greater level of awareness with less suffering!

Take Care

Helen.