Getting Onboard with Difficulties

If you've lived any time at all as a modern adult, and if you take a moment to reflect on the successes and difficulties you've encountered, I'm pretty sure you'd have to admit that there are some pretty active self-defeating habits we have developed. It's really not our fault. We have been taught by example for generations. But there is one "bad habit" that, to me, stands out from all the rest: Not seeing difficulties and setbacks as opportunities.

There are very good reasons why difficulties are, well, so difficult. First, they hurt. The pain is either emotional, or sometimes literally physical. Second, they usually seem to be coming at us from outside our experience or expectations--they seem to happen "to us"--out of our control.

Third, and perhaps the most appalling, is that some of these difficulties are "on repeat", as though some subsonscious program is calling the shots completely outside of our awareness or control. And this is true, for the most part, but it's not the whole story.

When a pattern of problems or difficulties happen "to us" repeatedly, the first thing we do is start taking it personally--as a sort of personal attack on us by life. We know this isn't really true, but it sure seems like it is!

Teal Swan addresses this quite eloquently in her video, "F*ck The Law of Attraction." (see YouTube) In it, she points out that when unwanted things happen to us, it makes us a magnetic match to more unpleasantness. The apparent purpose of this setup is for us to recognize the unwanted pattern and then to change it. The problem is that there are two points of magnetic attraction: one is your temporal or physical self, and the other is your higher or non-physical, spiritual self--both of which are subject to this "Law of Attraction".

For example, you are dealing with recurring financial problems. In this LOA universe, the higher self sees learninig about poverty as a way to discover the way to financial freedom and abundance. Meanwhile, the temporal self is vibrating in poverty, pulling even more poverty in, making it harder and harder to see the light at the end of the financial tunnel.

The way through this seeming "Catch-22" of experiencing poverty and having the universe reflect it back to you with even more poverty, is to start "getting onboard" with the poverty experience. This does NOT mean to try to experience more poverty--your higher self is already doing that! The idea here is to reframe your poverty experience down here on the ground as an opportunity to express gratitude for the progress you are making toward financial resolution and freedom. With each experience of poverty, the universe is waiting for you to match that frequency by resisting it. When you do not match the frequency by expressing gratitude for it, there's no point to continuing the poverty exercise. There is no engagement or entanglement with the poverty frequency, so it is neutralized.

Now, by allowing these poverty experiences, and by not reacting with negativity to them, the universe comes to understand that you no longer need or require these experiences. You are free to be financially free.

By acknowledging this particular mechanical property of life, when unwanted circumstances occur, there is very good reason for expressing gratitude. These events are leading to the highest, most generative life you truly desire. By expressing gratitude in this way, Life starts reflecting that gratitude back to you with your higher desires.

Beyond gratitude, you can also call on the spiritual light we all have access to. Call it in to engulf whatever repeating unwanted circumstance you are experiencing. This adds to the neutralizing effect, and makes it easier to experience gratitude. Mindfulness is a pre-requisite for this type of practice, so observe your thoughts and feelings when these unwanted experiences are occurring, so you can then remember to feel gratitude and send in the light as your sword.

By getting "onboard" with your difficulties is the most direct way to resolve them.