A monk walking through a monastery with a calm and peaceful expression on his face.
A woman sitting perfectly in the lotus position in meditation with sheer bliss in her expression.
Saint Francis walking in nature with animals all around him and a halo of light at his head.
These were some of the tranquil images I associated with the spiritual path. That is, before I stepped onto it myself! Then it started to kick my butt! It feels much more like a ride on Disney’s Space Mountain to me, complete with hurtling through the dark at high speeds. I hear from folks all the time that life seemed easier before they started trying to heal, raise their vibration or get closer to the Divine. It seems that once they surrendered to the path, all kinds of things started happening: loved ones died, long-standing friendships were challenged, jobs and financial security were threatened. Even the environment appeared to be getting involved, throwing tornadoes, hurricanes, fires, mudslides and more at us. What’s next? Locust and pestilence?
Difficulties occurred before heading down the spiritual path, of course, but things definitely seem to be escalating for many of us. Trials also seem to be coming more quickly, too. There barely seems time to breathe and recover before we are slammed again. It’s like you were standing in front of the pitching machine with your baseball bat. You were doing fine—maybe not hitting them all out of the park—but at least connecting with the ball on most pitches. Now, it’s like someone turned up the speed. You can barely get your stance back before the next ball comes. Every once in a while it seems like you get hit in the head with a cheap shot, but are too stunned to walk to first.
A commitment to the spiritual path is a commitment to soul growth. It’s a commitment to the fast track—the more direct route to Enlightenment (See last month’s article on Enlightenment: http://www.bellesprit.com/index.php/our-team/columnists-contributors/85-wendy-joy/1007-asc-tips-may-13). It’s arguably the ultimate goal of each life, yet no one tells us that, so we bumble around in lifetime after lifetime, learning some lessons, missing others and taking on new ones as we mess up.
No doubt our souls are just thrilled that we are making a decision to evolve and they turn on the lessons full blast. The soul reincarnates to learn lessons (some call it releasing karma) and it doesn’t appear to care that that can be a challenge to our human selves. In order to evolve, we have to face the exact things that challenge us. We may need to learn to love unconditionally, to forgive, to assist others or to love ourselves. In most cases, we have many, many lessons to learn, while learning a single one can often take lifetimes.
Fortunately, there are some things we can do to make the ride on the roller coaster better:
- Take Personal Responsibility: Everything that happens in your life is there for you. Don’t blame things on others and don’t focus on what they need to learn in the situation and that, if only they would change, things would be fine. Look at why it’s showing up for you and make the changes you need to make. This is a tough one for many. It’s always so much easier to see what others are doing wrong and how they need to change.
- Identify the Lesson: Try to figure out what the lesson is in each life challenge. Sometimes we can’t see it until later, but other times, if we look, we can identify it. It is usually the thing that is tweaking us the most. Knowing the key challenge can help us to focus our efforts and develop needed skills. If you can’t see what’s there for you, ask Spirit to show you and don’t act on your more “negative” emotions until you figure things out. That means not yelling at your husband for being a jerk until you realize why you’re really mad. It may not have anything to do with him.
- Choose your vantage point: You need to decide whether you want to live from the physical world perspective or a soul-evolution perspective. A physical world perspective holds truths like, “You must fight back when you are wronged,” “You are weak if you show love and kindness,” and “You must come out on top.” It demands that we react to the world with one set of actions, like calling someone a jerk, suing your neighbor, etc.; while a soul-evolving approach will require something much different. The soul-evolving approach would perhaps ask that you smile at the person who wronged you, that you find the thing to love in the seemingly unlovable or that you compassionately see the other person’s point of view.
- Become Conscious of Lessons Learned: After going through a tough challenge, take time to reflect back. What helped you stay peaceful? If you didn’t stay peaceful, in hindsight, what might have helped? What did you do to stay in the highest level of integrity? What would you like to change the next time you face something similar? Rest-assured, you will face something like this again, just to make sure you’ve really gotten it.
- Know that the Ride Gets Smoother: If you continue to use the healing and ascension tools to continue to raise your vibration, it does get easier because you are able to see things from a different perspective and to remain in the calm longer and longer. When a similar situation arises again, it truly doesn’t bother you (or at least not to the same extent) because your trigger is gone because you’ve learned a way to react to it or you’ve healed and released it. The bumps, drops and turns are still there, but you’re now ready for them and they don’t seem so bad. As you continue to learn the lessons and raise your vibration, reacting from an elevated perspective becomes natural.
Ascension is definitely a challenging ride, but it’s definitely one worth taking. Your soul and the rest of humanity thank you.
Connect with Wendy Joy at www.facebook.com/wendyjoyauthor for answers to questions and FREE Distant Energy on the 9th of each month. Find information on healing sessions and Wendy’s book Clear Channel: A Guide for the Newly Awakening at www.wendyjoy.net.
