The purpose of suffering
Desires for things and attachments to people are the cause of suffering because attachments are transitory, so loss will be inevitable.
Things in the universe are changing all the time so joyful moments need to be embraced rather than expect them to stay the same. This also means difficult times will not last forever either. Attachment in relationships causes suffering, because a person is needing the other person to be in an unchanged state, so they don’t have to change. Non-attachment is living life without one’s happiness being defined on what the outcomes will be.
Any true source of peace, happiness and contentment is not provided by anything outside of oneself although the illusion is there that it. Suffering is a great teacher, and why no human lives without some form of suffering. Through suffering we learn compassion. At some point in life a person may become more conscious of needing to dig deeper in understanding this. This can be triggered by many things like an awakening through trauma.
This experience may also bring about limitations in the physical or mental, like chronic illnesses or mental illness. This can be lot for the personality to deal with. Much of it will be temporary, but for some it may be a longer journey to learn and heal from.
Often this happens when people are faced with the potential for much transformation in life, so they may feel to make many changes to their lives. They must then learn from the the limitations they face to find peace. It can be a hard thing for a person to accept that the pain and suffering they experienced was necessary for them to grow.
Fear△
What is fear? It is an emotion you have learned. It causes doubt, lack of confidence and negative thoughts and expectations.
Danger is real, fear is a choice, and only the result of the thoughts we create in our mind convincing us it is real. Fear limits our thinking of who we are and what we can become.It is not often the circumstances that cause the fear but the thoughts around the circumstances that cause the fear.
Others may dump their fears on us, but we do have a choice to decide what is real and what is someone else’s stuff. Other people are good at projecting their own fears upon us so why do we take them on?
If one doesn't feel confident and have a good sense of who they are, their fears will put doubt in their mind about themself. If we really stop to think about this, it’s not hard to see they are just illusions of someone else’s fears, who want validation from us that their fears are real.
Fear will often appear when the truth is getting closer, and it takes so much more energy to hang onto it rather than face what we fear. Fear is the enemy of our growth, thus the only way forward is to move beyond it, and nurture our potential in life.
Failure is often about understanding in hindsight a better path forward so it’s more about how we choose to learn our lessons. If we become more conscious of the decisions we make, and what they are creating, we will make better choices that enhance our life thus reducing the need to learn some lessons.
When we live by fear we only focus on what not to do because every decision we make gives us an opportunity to learn from it, and not repeat patterns that disrupt our growth. The path of fear keeps us stuck and doesn’t provide any advancement in reaching our potential.
Obstacles△
Who’s that in my way? If I didn’t know any better, I’d say it looks a lot like me. It is me!
We really need to find some humour about ourselves as we are quite funny and can take ourselves far too seriously. When we reflect on some of the decisions we have made that come to mind, and in hindsight understand the lesson, I’m sure many will find humour in the way they chose to learn. The universe has a good sense of humour, it’s just sometimes we are not amused at what we are handed out for our growth.
The very thing we are avoiding will not go away, and when we finally think it has given up bothering us, it then rises with more strength to get our attention. Resistance can end up being a big problem if we fight it tooth and nail and in the end, we end up with more lessons. It is best to deal with our inner conflicts and embrace change because in the long run we will be grateful we did. You may meet with obstacles on your path, but don’t allow yourself to be one of them.
Hindsight△
Sometimes we get insight into our bigger picture but we have more work, and understanding to gain before we can start to manifest it.
This happens when we are being prepared for something bigger, and we need more inner training. It’s better to not look to the past with regret or wishing we had done something differently because nothing can materially be changed about that, and it doesn’t mean we made the wrong decision. It’s more important we gained wisdom from it.
If we allow the heart to guide, we will better know when to wait and when to proceed. People that push us to reach goals that are set from their perspective are always quick to judge where people should be when they don’t know anything about their purpose in life. However, it is good to embrace change when opportunities are put in our pathway that help us grow.
The inner pushes us to take leaps of faith because it knows what’s best for us. Outcomes from a leap of a faith that don’t turn out as we wished or expected doesn't necessarily mean we made a mistake, it is just sometimes our perception of the leap of faith was not understood.