Life is simple. Everything happens for you, not to you.
— Byron Katie
Life is a stream of experiences. Each day we encounter challenges and blessings, joys and sorrows, and excitement and frustration. Sometimes the experiences we have are thing we desire. We seek them and hope to increase how often they occur. At other times, the experiences that come our way are really challenging and are not what we would choose for ourselves. Generally, we dread these experiences and try to avoid them.
We do not always get to choose the type of experiences we have. We usually don’t get to choose the timing of our challenges either. Despite this, there is one thing we always have the power to choose — how we interpret our experiences.
Regardless of what happens to us, we can always choose how we interpret our experiences. We can choose to look at our challenges as something that is happening for us, not to us. As we do this, we can find opportunities for learning and growth, even in our biggest trials.
Having this perspective can be very difficult. When we are in the midst of a trial, we may feel hurt, frustrated, alone, or in pain. All of these feelings can make it very hard to see the opportunities that can be found in our trials. It is often much easier to see the growth gained from our hard experiences as we reflect on them once they have passed.
We can use this perspective to help us more readily view our challenges in a positive light even as we struggle to overcome them. You can reflect on how you have grown and benefitted from challenges in the past. What did you learn? In what ways have your biggest struggles helped you learn and grow? How did these challenges become a blessing?
When we ask these kinds of questions we can learn to see the good in every experience, even when we feel we are in the midst of struggles.
What blessings and growth have you experienced because of your past struggles? How can you find similar growth in your current challenges?