Life does not come at us from the outside in, even though that is the way we've always seen it. Once we understand this, we'll see the mistake we've been making all along about the true meaning of strength. Currently, we have a list of things we want to overcome: our past; our failure to acquire what we believe we need; a pressing world that has it in for us. We've identified these challenges as something that comes at us from outside.

Naturally enough, our behavior is based on what our mind identifies as the cause of the problem. We keep fighting the exterior challenge as a means of healing ourselves, but we keep getting hurt. A wound that is covered over too soon fails to heal from the inside. In the same way, as we try to fix the psychological wound from the outside, we interfere with the natural healing process, which must be an internal one. And because we don't understand the nature of the wound, we rend it again.

Like all living things, each of us is in the process of unfolding, living, being, from the inside out. The way our minds work, our expectations -- our personalities -- determine the way we experience, interpret, and react to the events we meet. The same event can mean entirely different things to different people. That's because for each of them, life is unfolding from the inside out. Rising interest rates mean one thing if you're a banker, and quite another if you are in the market for a new home. Putting on a few pounds means one thing to a woman who is confident about her self-worth, and quite another to a woman who fears that the passing of her youthful beauty means the loss of her real value.

Over time, there come to be formed in our minds and hearts certain incorrect ideas and mistaken beliefs about ourselves and our needs. These conditioned mental and emotional pictures are not who we really are, but they seem so real to us that they become the platform from which we view and interpret the events we meet. When events occur that disagree with or fail to confirm those ideas, we see them as threats. Now our attention moves outward.

Instead of understanding that the event only appears threatening because that's the way a self-picture interpreted it, we believe that it is an objective threat -- an enemy. Now we find ourselves in a constant battle to control external circumstances in order to protect the images. Events that are truly neutral in nature are interpreted to be a real threat, and so we go to war. And the whole thing was the result of an erroneous inner reaction, not the external event.

The fear we feel at the possible exposure of our shaky images is a form of pain. This pain is caused by an undetected inner activity, but we project this disturbance outward and blame the event. Meanwhile, the genuine you, waiting to unfold from within, lies forgotten. Instead of learning from events, we take them as our enemy. Through neglect, the voice of the true you grows fainter until it no longer guides your life, while you go off fighting meaningless battles. The quiet power of your true inner nature is silenced, while the outer life stumbles forward, unable to find the rest in resolution that it seeks.

Have you ever seen a rosebud that failed to bloom properly from within? The outer leaves whither as the inner growth stops. The flower fails to unfold. For many people who enjoy the false excitement of these never-ending life-battles, life is like that thwarted rosebud. It gradually withers from without because it fails to fulfill its true purpose: to unfold into its full flower from within.

However, things can be different for the person who grows tired of fighting wars that have no meaning and that never reach a conclusion. One day your greatest desire will be to watch your life unfold fully according to its own higher plan. You will grow weary with your own idea of strength with its accompanying false excitement. You will gladly sacrifice it so that you may experience a higher wisdom that will be strong for you. What relief you will feel in coming into the real self-command of realizing you never had to be strong at all in the way you always thought you did.