One doesn’t learn from others’ experiences as much as one’s own. An individual’s experiences are unique to the individual and meant for the person, just like one’s unique fingerprints. To understand the meaning of one’s own challenges, one ought to go beyond labelling them good or bad or judging self on these parameters but shift the perspective further deeper to know the buried meaning in them.
Self-knowledge is the highest knowledge
Experiences contribute to your wisdom if you choose to learn from them. If not, it’s a wasted opportunity. If, for example, I have chosen to speak rudely to someone, then using my awareness and wisdom, I will re-set my intention to speak compassionately the next time. That is growing, learning.
You don’t live others’ wisdom; you live your own. That’s how profound your experiences are. Your challenges are yours too. Nothing that is not yours will come to you. You are the producer, creator, beneficiary and experiencer of your own challenges and happiness. You can’t lay claim on the experiences of others, meaning you can’t live off others’ experiences. So, respect what you go through. And learn from them, open up your wisdom by dropping the victimised state. Can you do that? This requires courage. The benefit is then yours to take.
Why do challenges appear in our lives?
You will see some challenges are bound to happen, no matter what you do; those are your experiences for learning. For example, being born in a certain family/ location/ conditions, being or not being parent, getting old, falling ill, getting caught in natural disasters. All these experiences are great teachers.
Some challenges can shape-shift and are totally dependent on you how you shape them and shift them and make them to your benefit. These add to the richness of your learning.
Some challenges seem to come from nowhere but these may be small upsets of day-to-day life. Again, extract your lesson/s and move on from them; holding on adds to your baggage of burden/s.
You are already carrying more burden/s than required. How do we know? These are reflected in anxiety, fear, worry, doubts, strained relationships. Count your strained relationships. Seek and give forgiveness and close affairs in peace. A lot of burden will be off you. Can you tap into the vibration of forgiveness? Can you carry your affairs in forgiveness? This will help you guide on the amount of the burden you are carrying.
Experiences are life-changing
Experiences hold the ability to alter one’s life course. Some changes are by natural design but in most, your perception and willingness play a part. You will find that some individuals go bitter with bitter life-experiences, however, some are able to process their experiences meaningfully to grow wiser, expanded and perceptive.
Our experiences are the effects of the causes that we create. For example, being born in a certain circumstance/location/family is the effect of the cause/s one created in the past lifetimes. This is not to be judged, because the soul (inner being) doesn’t judge on personality parameters; it attaches experiences merely with its growth and involution, where body becomes a suit and earth, a location where such experiences can take place.
Some causes are latent, so the effect is latent, however, some effects are manifest in this lifetime for purposes of expansion, expression and/or healing. What you have not caused, will not manifest in your experience. There’s an order, pattern and meaning to your experiences.
Disclaimer: Urmila Rao is an emotional healer and a forgiveness teacher. All the ideas expressed herein are her own and not professional advice or medical prescription. Her email: hellokarmicwellness@gmail.com