The paths of life that we walk, chosen or unchosen, these are the paths through which we will be growing as human-beings, or at the very least, these will be our given opportunities for such. What matters above all is how you choose to deal with them. This is where you hold the power. If you manage to figure out the lesson and respond accordingly, this will be your gateway to the more refined and advanced versions of yourself.
Interpreting the challenges that comes your way as vital opportunities to learn (no matter how difficult or triggering) is crucial to be able to take on the levels ahead with a greater awareness. This is absolutely fundamental in your decision making to open up the way forward with far greater clarity. The higher the difficulty you are met with, the higher the level of mastery and awareness that will become available to you. This is where your chosen perspectives with how you choose to process the challenge becomes vital. This will be the deciding factor whether you advance or will have to repeat the lesson from another angle. Learning broader, and more aware perspectives to add to your mental toolkit will help untangle you from the dysfunctional thought patterns you currently possess. This is the value of uncomfortable challenges. They expose the level of dysfunction within yourself, that you now have the ability to change.
Something that has become perfectly clear in my own experience is that choosing to identify yourself as a victim in any way when it comes to life’s tests and challenges (no matter how big or small), you automatically fail and are stripped of any ability to grow. It results in becoming intoxicated with the associated thought patterns, it completely disempowers and ultimately diminishes you. Therefore, take on the journey of learning and always choose to make the absolute most of any given situation or challenge (with your current level of awareness) and build on that moving forward. This is the fine art of turning lead into gold.
On my journey through all the difference stages I’ve experienced as an artist and as a person, looking back, the challenges (that almost had me give up on numerous occasions) were actually testing for and revealing my levels of self-belief, self-worth, passion and commitment to the present moment. I later realised that this was really about how centred I was in allowing the universes expansion to continue flowing through me without my interruption of it (no matter what I was faced with).
When we are tested to our absolute limits, this is when we get to see who we really are and what we are made of and to then do some serious growing. No matter what we are shown about ourselves, it’s not to be taken personally. If it is taken personally, this is where the work needs to be done - to identify what is actually being triggered, to address it and to reprogram it towards your stability instead. Then moving forward becomes available. On this journey, some of the challenges may be quite overwhelming to process. This is where supportive self-talk is absolutely necessary and remembering to take things one step at a time. This may take some trial and error, so be patient with this process.
In my experience, my greatest challenge has been figuring out and refining the quality of my practiced self-talk. This is what was really defining my self-worth, self-belief and therefore my ability to move forward with anything. The words you use with yourself are the seeds of your life.