Your hardships are your lessons

Let me share two stories with you:

One of the persons most dear to me in the world has serious issues. She believes that she means nothing as long as she can’t have the man she loves. Who left her about half a year ago. She is paralysed by suffering and cannot move her life an inch. And nothing will change, until she will chose to change.

I have a colleague who’s very action oriented. She can’t stand people who are resistant to change. Ironic or not, she will change her job soon enough, and one of the people she will have to work with is one who is rather conservative and detail oriented. She’s in for a hard time.

What do both have in common?

Both have a barrier that they’ve set to themselves. One of them is “I can’t do anything”, the other one is “I need to get something done”.
And both have a lesson to learn.

It is said that the hardships you get in life are your lessons. They will keep coming back to you until you’ve learned your lesson.

How does this work?

Your mind has  patterns. It creates millions of canals through which synapses form. Practically, these canals are the way you keep reacting to certain stimuli. And if you keep reacting in the same way, you’ll keep getting the same results.
Think about the recurring issues in your life.
What pattern can you see around them?
What behaviour of yours keeps repeating?

I am very fast. I am so fast, that I tend to hit the reply and send button without thinking much about what I type in between. This caused me serious trouble one or two times.
So, ironic or not, I got a job where I’m involved in extensive sensitive communication. I now have to think through messages and procedures, and carefully analyse possible implications. Nightmarish at first, but a good education for my buzzing self.

What you have issues on is precisely what you’re going to have to work on.

You may decide to postpone this, but you’re in for a long and hard journey. These lessons are going to return to you until you take the challenge and accept what they have to teach.

Practical self – work:

• Think about the most annoying person you’ve had to deal with.
• What are 2 things that you can’t stand in this person?
• Now, can you name one more person who has the same characteristics, and who showed up in your life previously?
• How did your behavior influence the relationship with this person?
• Is there any part of your behavior, that, if changed, would make a drastic improvement?
• Can you make this change?
• As of when?