It's well known that storm-tossed waves often expose new treasures along the shoreline; there is unexpected wealth to be collected by those who know the secret value of rough seas. And yet, even though most of us have little tolerance for anything that "rocks our boat," the truth of the matter is self-evident:
Unwanted moments introduce us to parts of ourselves that would otherwise never get healed were it not for the difficulties that first reveal them and that lead us to release their pain.
The problem is that, when things go "badly," we tend to do battle! Hoping to put right what's perceived as having gone wrong, we work to rebuild our former sense of self by struggling to restore what life has washed away. But each time we resist life in this way, we miss uncovering a new and fearless understanding that is the greatest treasure of all:
The only reason life changes as it does is to reveal the secret goodness underlying those same changes.
When things go "badly" for us, we're not intended to "return" to who and what we have been. To see the good in this idea, we must be willing to see that the pain in unwanted moments can either be a rock into which we crash time and time again -- a tempest without termination -- or that same suffering can be used as an inflection point, a place of real change that exists only when all seems lost. Let's look at a simple illustration to illuminate this idea.
Whenever the right two stones are struck together, a spark will appear; there is a flash of light. This same principle holds true whenever we "collide" with life. In that instant parts of us that we've never seen before are illuminated. For instance, who hasn't crashed into that dreaded moment when we realize that someone we love has had a change of heart toward us? Suddenly we see, perhaps for the first time, how painfully dependent we'd become upon his or her company or approval and -- connected to that same fearful neediness -- our willingness to compromise ourselves, to do whatever it takes to keep that relationship in place.
It's this "spark" -- the light of this new and higher self-awareness -- that is our real friend in unwanted moments. It reveals what is concealed within us, releasing us from the psychic bondage of serving what had been secretly limiting our right to live without fear. If we will fan this spark of inner light, embrace instead of resist what it reveals about us, it becomes a kind of spiritual fire -- a higher level of awareness that will always help us to see the secret goodness in seemingly "bad" moments. In this way we discover that behind every bitter disappointment lives the presence of a sweet light whose power can turn any unwanted event into a new kind of victory not yet imagined.
