Some lessons can’t be taught. They simply have to be learned.
~ Jodi Picoult
As 2015 was ending and 2016 was beginning, I was intrigued to hear from a number of people that 2015 was a difficult year for them. I know for myself, I experienced heartbreaks of various kinds in 2015. When I hear about (or experience) difficulties the question I ask is, “Have the lessons been learned?” If you experienced a difficult 2015, I invite you to look back (if you haven’t) and ask yourself, “What lessons have I learned? Have I gained what I needed to from these?”
We are so enmeshed in duality and polarity: good/bad, dark/light, etc. That often we easily dismiss an experience or a person as bad or a jerk or some other label. While this can satisfy our ego, it does nothing for our soul.
This past summer, I took part in a Mugwort Initiation. During this weekend, one of the gifts I received from Mugwort was a trip to a higher dimension. From this place, I was able to look down on Earth. I could see that our “good” experiences and our “bad” experiences are different facets of one experience. There isn’t good, there isn’t bad, there is one.
Bringing this back down to Earth, what can appear to be a horrible or heartbreaking experience through another lens can materialize as a gift. Or a total jerk can be a great teacher. The challenge is to be willing to move beyond the judgment and categorizing, to sit with the pain, to remain open and to look for the lesson or gift. This may mean releasing a limiting belief or healing a trauma that led to a negative pattern or learning a new skill or gaining an insight or falling in Love with yourself. Sometimes you may not know what the lesson is, sometimes it may take years. However, by simply refraining from judgment, you remain open to the gift(s).
What do I mean by judgment? Well there is the obvious that I already mentioned, naming the experience or the person - horrible, jerk, asshole, waste of time ... Then there is the self-judgment, “I should have” or “I’m a sucker”. None of this is actually helpful. While the judging of the other person, limits the picture and your learning, self-judging is toxic and self-limiting.
Being open, means allowing yourself to feel what you need to feel, process these emotions, take your time. We live in a fast paced society that is not comfortable with emotions. Therefore, the tendency is to rush things along, skim over the experience. If we do this, we risk missing the gifts. Though, no need to stress over it, for if we were meant to learn a lesson, we will be given another opportunity. Unfortunately, these opportunities usually occur in bigger and bigger lessons until you get the proverbial 2x4 across the head. Therefore, I think it is wise to take our time processing the experiences, learning the lessons while they are somewhat easy.
Proper timing is personal. This is your journey, your lesson, it is not up to anyone else to say what is the proper time to process an experience. If you recently lost a love one, chances are it will take you longer than the allotted 3 days off work to fully grieve. The same is true about an illness. Illness is the physical body drawing your attention to something that has been in your emotional and/or spiritual body. We think that when we are symptom free, we are “all better”. However, if you did not take the time to process the underlying issue nor to let your body fully recover - often we are overworking our bodies and what is needed is rest - most likely, you will have another illness. This too follows the progression of unlearned lessons, getting bigger and bigger until you are forced to pay attention: cancer, fibromyalgia, diabetes, heart attack, etc.
Of course, sometimes we can get stuck, which is also not healthy. Nostalgia and obsessing are symptoms of being stuck. The image that I think of is a car spinning their wheels in the mud. The wheels keep turning, but the car isn’t going anywhere except deeper and deeper in the mud. This too prevents us from moving forward and learning our lessons.
While I was traveling in Ireland, I quickly learned to love the roundabouts. The maps and signs were not very clear (at least not to me), so when I came to a roundabout rather than having to decide quickly which road to take (and risk driving on the wrong one for hours before turning around), I would drive around the roundabout gathering info, looking at the signs, looking at the map until I was sure which exit was the right direction. This is the analogy for processing an experience.
For instance, many people end a relationship and say, “What a jerk! That guy has so many issues.” Then they quickly find another relationship. (This is the same as quickly picking a road from the roundabout.) Only after the honeymoon phase is over, they suddenly find themselves in the same place as before, with a jerk with many issues. They can keep repeating this process. Or they can take their time after the break-up and feel their emotions. Get curious about what it was in them that attracted this person. What part of them is looking for healing? What lessons can they learn? This is going around the roundabout and gathering info until they are ready to proceed and suddenly they are on the right road heading to the next place of adventure.
The good news is that no matter what you choose to do, in the end it will be okay. If you choose to ignore the lessons, you will be given other opportunities to learn them. If you decide to process and try to learn the lessons this time around, there are many helpers to ease this evolution including Flower Essences, Plant Spirits, and more. For when you allow yourself to process your experience and look for the gifts, you learn about yourself, your soul path, and you take another step towards becoming your True Essential Nature. You will find that when you do this, the Nature Spirits and other guides will be there to support you in amazing ways.
If you had difficulties this past year, I again ask you, “What have you learned from these?”
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Some people see the lessons of Love in their loss, and grow from it; others see themselves as unlucky in Love, learning nothing. And again, all this is okay.
~ Michael J. Roads.
