Learning to Fly – A Spiritual Lesson About Overcoming Adversity

“It's not the load that breaks you down; it’s the way you carry it.” – Lena Horne

It's been said that life never gives us more than we can handle. While our egos resist this idea, our hearts will ultimately discover it to be true.

Yes, part of us loves to be challenged. Deep down we know it’s how we grow, and our souls love growth! However, we don't want to face the kinds of challenges that ultimately cause us to question who we are and why we're here.

Yet those are the challenges that ultimately break us down or lift us up. They either pummel us into the ground or they strengthen our wings so that we can fly.

When we're faced with a difficult situation, perhaps seemingly impossible, the first thing many us do is feel overwhelmed. We question why we've been given such a load and whether or not we have the capability to handle it.

We might even freak out.

This is a natural reaction whenever our expected state of comfort is shaken up in surprising, difficult, and most importantly, unwanted ways. It's our ego's way of saying, “This isn't what I signed up for! Please make it easy again for me.”

This inner resistance breaks us down hard and fast. It creates an inner conflict whereby we are actually at war with ourselves. We judge ourselves as unworthy, incapable, and weak.

These judgments are emotionally stressful and inhibit our ability to access our true and incredible capacities as human beings. This inner load breaks us down physically, mentally, and spiritually.

The alternative is to change the way we carry our loads.

Instead of channeling that fear-based energy inwards, we transmute it into a healthy assertion. Underneath fear and assertion is the same kind of “aggressive” energy. The difference is that fear turns aggression towards ourselves, while assertion is the health expression of aggression towards overcoming the challenges we face.

When we learn to channel this energy for our benefit, we use our challenges as opportunities for growth. Just like working out develops muscles to carry greater physical loads, this inner growth empowers us to carry greater emotional and spiritual loads.

Though this is simple, it's rarely easy.

That's why it has the potential to either break us down or lift us up. One of the most effective methods to shift from fear to growth is to combine inner perspective changes with taking small concrete actions in the world.

From an inner perspective, the first step is to forgive ourselves. We must accept our humanity and recognize that there's only so much we can do with our given resources. If we could do better, we would have.

We're doing the best we can.

This acceptance allows us to stop the inner conflict that uses up so much of our energy. It immediately dismantles the inner judgments of unworthiness and inadequacy that consume so much of our attention.

With that freed energy, we gain greater access to our innate strength that's lying dormant within us. That strength empowers us to carry greater emotional and spiritual loads while experiencing less stress.

In the next blog post in this series, we'll share with you some ‘outer' strategies to also help lessen the load. Click here to read it.