Use the Contrast and Challenges in Your Life for Your Growth and Expansion

Image by Julia Schwab from Pixabay

I was listening to Tami Simon interview Shannon Kaiser this week, and she was talking about how the contrast of life points to our growth. This lady was talking my language because I truly believe our challenges are there to assist our expansion.

When I was quite young, I remember having this thought that, logically, how could I appreciate something good if I had never experienced something bad? So I really felt there was a purpose to this life of duality we live on Earth.

Good and bad, male and female, chaos and order, turmoil and peace, black and white and so on, all of it and a lot more are a spectrum of our dynamic and ever changing experiences in life.

I was talking to a dear friend this morning about balance. She has been sculpting on the topic recently and it’s deeply resonated with her because it’s a topic she feels really challenged by. As a busy mum and someone who runs twice-weekly art workshops for kids in her local area, trying to fit seventeen hours and more of study into her already hectic week has been a real challenge.

Getting an opportunity to outwardly express how she inwardly feels contending with the day-to-day struggles has been a glorious process of unwinding. It is part of a structured study programme exploring a wide range of creative processes, and she was saying at the outset some of her work felt manic, fractured and incoherent, “not very good”. I suspect it is all truly reflective of the layers within, it’s taken a while to really tune into and land in her creative space.

This was resonant with other conversations I’d had this week with busy mums. For me, being creative is something I have to make space for. Like my friend, if I try to tap into something out the blue I just get all the static and noise that bubbles beneath the surface of my day-to-day existence of school runs, organising play dates, sports and activities, grocery shopping, making dinner, washing and the ever-present need for attention to name a few.

It’s that there is a feeling of constantly being “on standby” and the need to create a large bubble of space in which to safely land in the middle and tune into what is really wanting to be seen or felt. It’s all very well to take an hour to go for a walk, or to take a yoga class or meditate, but real landing spaces where I can power down my vigilance to what’s going on “out there” and tune into “in here” for any length of time are like solid gold.

And yet, as I just said to another friend, a busy dad, the days are long and the years are short. My children will grow up and then I’ll be left hopefully cherishing the memories of the activities and things we did together, and the noise of all the more intense and monotonous things will fade as I feel into and appreciate the contrasting expansiveness of having more and more time to myself.

Of course in the meantime I meditate, walk, swim and write as regular practices, as a way of acknowledging the world within me and giving permission to myself to explore. Sometimes I get that same chaotic static as my friend initially experienced, but by making these practices a regular feature in my life, I can usually get past this quite quickly.

But listening to Tammi talk to Shannon Kaiser about her new book Return to You, I did reflect on some of the other challenges in my life.

As my dear friend said to me this morning (when I was relaying the details of life in my new home, and just how much joy I had gotten from buying my new “contemporary light green metallic” electric kettle and toaster) “I can imagine just how liberating that felt after feeling trapped for so long. There was no one else you had to consult about it, or justify it to, you could just do it and not worry about the repercussions”.

While not the topic of this article, it is certainly true that many things have conspired to keep me feeling trapped for a long time, and I am most definitely still getting used to the idea of freedom and enjoying these little moments of getting to really feel into it, the contrast makes it all the more delicious.

Another thing that can challenge me is loneliness. Over the years I have often felt lonely; not feeling seen, understood or valued. On the flip side this makes it all the sweeter when I have good company and I really appreciate the wonderful friends I have all the more for the many positive things they bring to my life.

All of this is not to bypass the feelings I have, but to simply observe them and appreciate what life is teaching me about those aspects of myself. Neither do I need to hold myself in bondage to what I’m feeling, which I have often had a tendency to do, staying in unhealthy situations and relationships for too long out of a misguided sense of loyalty, duty or obligation.

But these are all points for growth and expansion, and all my experiences are a perfect match – if I choose to see them this way - to calling me forwards towards my best life, and basking in appreciation at the other end of the spectrum.

So what about you, what challenges do you face in life? Are you able to feel into what life would be like if the opposite were true? Remember it’s in experiencing the contrasts of life we move towards our growth and expansion.

If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy Be Purposeful in Your Focus - Your Glass Is Actually Still Half Full, Your Soul Wants You to Soar, When to Act on Possibility, Want to Be Delighted and Amazed With a 'Lived Life to the Full' Epitaph? and Be Compassionate and Curious to Live Your Best Life. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.