Challenges Can Be Great Signals for Our Next Level
Eckhart Tolle once said, how we face a challenge determines the outcome or our next experience.
A challenge comes. We want either to use it or to get rid of it. Both ways have different consequences.
If we try to get rid of it, it becomes an obstacle. We want to deny the reality.
If we can use it to strengthen our practice or discipline, it becomes our golden stepping stone to move to our higher level.
Napoleon Hill said it beautifully:
“Everyone faces defeat. It may be a stepping-stone or a stumbling block, depending on the mental attitude with which it is faced.”
If we face a challenge with fear and avoidance, more of the same challenge will come and knock us down. We find ourselves in constant fights with it and never win. We fight because of the fear that controls us. We feel weaker and are more afraid. We want to give up. In fact, when we face a challenge with fear or trying to escape, we already lost. That is one of the fundamental psychological laws. Try and see it yourself.
On the other hand, when we see a challenge as a natural part of life, we neither escape nor fight. It can be a great motivation for us to rise to the level we’ve been longing for. We want to reach the mountaintop and challenges appearing on the way are good signals. Take them as advantages and we will reach our next level.
What is required is what develops. When strength is required, our strength will develop. If we choose this way of seeing, we will intuitively know what we need to do to develop that strength. Instead of fighting (this would be stupid), we will look deeply into the challenge and see what is required so that we can take it as a benefit, not threat. We can continue our path to our mountaintop. And, the reward that comes from this choice may be bigger than we’ve ever imagined.
Dr. David Hawkins wrote in his well-received book “Letting Go”: “Once the worst of all possible fears – the dread and shock of death – has been faced, it is superseded by a profound sense of serenity, peace, oneness, and immunity from fear. Many such persons develop extraordinary abilities, become healers, develop psychic awareness, and advanced states of spiritual illumination. They experience major leaps in growth and the sudden appearance of new talents and capacities. Thus, every life crisis carries within it the kernels of a reversal, a renewal, an expansion, a leap in consciousness, and a letting go of the old and a birth of the new.”