One common thing I've tended to notice throughout my life is that the same type of undesirable circumstance happens again and again and again. I never understood why that is, until recently.
Undesirable circumstances are life’s way of teaching us, these circumstances repeat when we’ve yet to learn the lesson. When we ignore those lessons, the bigger and bigger the undesirable situation will get until it becomes so big there remains no choice but to deal with it. (It might not be the same problem that just grows bigger, instead it can often be the same lesson we're meant to learn in the form of a slightly different kind of circumstance.)
When life is trying to teach us something, it will start by gently tapping on the door asking to be let in. If we ignore it, next time, it’s going to start knocking a bit harder, ignore it again, sometime down the road it’s going to start pounding on the door. Ignore it longer, eventually it’s going to be taking a crowbar and prying its way in. Soon enough, it will be kicking the door down and walking into the living room.
There's this famous saying that goes, “every problem is an opportunity in disguise”.
What I've come to realize is that it is literally true. When we look at life from the perspective, that everything happening is doing so for our benefit, it becomes easier to understand why we sometimes face difficult circumstances. We are here to grow and evolve spiritually. We need repetitions of undesirable circumstances in order to learn the lessons that will shape us into the type of person who received desirable circumstances. It would be a pretty lousy existence if we just always got what we wanted and never had to work for it.
Imagine the type of person who gets whatever they want without any work or effort. It would be a world full of those people.
The way to look at this is, whenever we are getting some unwanted circumstance, generally it is because in order to get what we want, there is some sort of lesson we first need to learn.
For example, if we want to be the type of person who is well respected, we need to be placed into sticky situations in social settings that will test our ability to handle ourselves under pressure. So if we are asking to be respected, it gives us the opportunity to learn how to earn that respect. Someone who isn't paying attention will just think they are getting an embarrassing situation, but if respect is what one asked for, this is exactly what that person needs.
When viewed from this perspective, there is never anything truly “bad” that is happening to us. Good and bad are subjective terms. Beliefs and intentions shape the reality and circumstances that are present in one's life. If we reacted poorly in that test, we were probably further embarrassed and may have lost the respect of others. If we believe that is true, then of course that perpetuates more embarrassing circumstances which will support that belief.
An experience I had from 2019 makes this more clear.
For some reason this year in particular, while playing online poker professionally, the amount of bad luck that I experienced was hard to understand. It went on and on throughout the year. I had a software program called “Pokertracker”, which would crunch all the numbers and indicate how much good or bad luck I experienced.
At the end of the year it indicated my play should have won something like $130,000, but instead, the number I had actually won over the course of the entire year was zero. Meaning I had played well enough to earn $130,000, but pure bad luck caused me to not make a dollar the whole year.
I recall during this stretch of awful luck, I felt as if I was being punished. I would think again and again to myself, “I don’t know why I am so unlucky," I thought, "I must deserve this.” I remember feeling sorry for myself and feeling like a victim to it. I still felt confident I was making winning plays and that I was playing better than my opponents, but I had this victim mentality when it came to my luck.
I remember getting my money in again and again in situations where I had 90%, 95%, even 99% chance to win, and it would get to the point where, even with such great odds, I just expected to lose, and I would. Over and over and over. I remember at one point I had lost a 50/50 situation something like 20 times in a row. Meaning, it would be the same odds of flipping a coin 20 times and it landing on heads every time.
For perspective, the chances of that are about one in one hundred thousand. Pretty unlikely!
But that's what we get with this reality. If we believe it, it will show it to us.
The more bad luck I noticed occurring, the more I thought of myself as an unlucky person and a victim, I even thought it was so brutal that I must have deserved this terrible luck, I expected no matter how great I played that I was going to lose.
I thought I deserved bad luck (even without any particular reason to believe that), and because I believed it, that's what I got. This is why someone who identifies as a victim and has low self-esteem tends to always get the short end of the stick.
We have to be honest with ourselves and consider whether sometimes we may be identifying this way. As recently as 2019 I did, but it's okay, because the reality is that this kind of thing is easy to overcome.
The big secret is, all we have to do is start acknowledging it whenever we notice it. But we need to do so without judging ourselves for it. When we suppress the feeling and pretend like it's not there, we create bigger problems for ourselves. All that is required is to have awareness of it and acknowledge that it is a part of who we are at that moment, then we just need to forgive ourselves. We are just humans with limited perspective, we aren't expected to know everything or be completely emotionally balanced at all times in every situation.
What happens is, once we start acknowledging that we are aware of these types of things, the more we do, the less energy we give to it, and after about a week of doing this, it happens automatically, we just stop identifying this way because those situations no longer trigger us.
So when it comes to our health, we need to consider our circumstances and ask ourselves some questions.
Do I think of myself as a sick person?
Do I identify with some “disease” the doctor said I have?
Do I constantly complain and talk about how lousy I am feeling?
Do I think negatively about my future and pessimistically about what will happen down the line?
Do I feel myself getting worked up then suppress my emotions, trying to pretend like they don't exist? (This is very detrimental, maybe one of the worst things we can do as it is literally one of the biggest factors in creating energetic blockages in the body which previous articles have stated to be a big factor in terms of causing physical illness.)
Changing this perspective of ourselves and of reality can effect change in how we feel overnight, but it doesn't completely heal us.
Though it is a major step in the right direction and can be a major catalyst towards a complete change in life circumstances.
Here's my advice to anyone identifying with some of those questions posed above:
Make a pact with yourself, just say it out loud, "I'm going to stop complaining about life and seeing myself as a victim for a week".
Then I asked ChatGPT for some good intentions to set before going to sleep. Follow this advice. Try saying any or all these just before going to sleep. Say it with a determined and optimistic tone. If it feels silly, pick something a little more "you", but anything along these lines below:
A lot of people might just think this is dumb or pointless. I used to be one of those people, until I just tried it then saw how well it worked. Then I started telling other people to do it, and I've never had anyone tell me, "I tried it and had a terrible day". Usually I get a message from them, "wow I can't believe how much better I'm doing today."
To be clear though, you have to believe it could work and this comes from your tonality and attitude. To make a big sigh then state one of these like it's a dumb chore, it's not going to have any effect. State it with conviction and excitement for what could happen.
Why does this work? I don't know. But something is there, it's always there, and it's always paying attention to everything happening. It hears every thought that goes through our mind, it knows every weakness and strength we have, it knows things in our subconscious of which we ourselves are not aware.
Worst case scenario, if none of this works and zero improvement is experienced, feel free to go back to resisting life and feeling like a victim.
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