Spirituality - Beyond Rainbows & Unicorns
When you Google "spirituality" you find a multitude of definitions and references, and like religion, spirituality is defined by your own personal perceptions. Humans love labels, so when we step away from organized religion, defining ourselves as spiritual gives us another identifying quality. As Christianity defines sin as a failure of the human experience, some spiritual beliefs offer the same pitfalls.
Everyone struggles. Everyone. The trick is how you allow the struggle to define you. Do you blithely waltz around with the attitude that life is always rainbows and unicorns, and because I believe that all is well all will be well? Or when faced with an obstacle do you truly look at that hurdle as a learning experience? I know both types of people. Hell, I've done both types of descriptions. Funnily enough the rainbows and unicorns scenario is the hardest one to maintain. Why? Because truly believing the positive is completely different than saying the positive. For example, go to any bookstore or app store and you will find hundreds of books on how and why it is important to stay positive in a negative world, whether it's from the law of attraction, or meditative mindfulness to Zen recordings to put us in a place of peace.
Why so many? Because people are still trying to invent the perfect mousetrap.
Life is about duality: good and bad, happiness and sadness, or love and hate. And on and on and on. Struggles represent that duality. You cannot experience love without giving love and feeling hate, just as you have to experience hate and prejudice in order to stand up against all that they represent. That's why life is not all rainbows and unicorns. As wonderful as always believing that all will be well just because of your positive thoughts, what happens when it isn't? What happens when illness appears, or a financial disaster happens? Trying to maintain that positive outlook is more difficult than ever.
Bad things happen to good people. Ignoring the obstacles and issues is actually detrimental to your spiritual growth. Part of our personal growth is feeling the hurt, the pain, the disappointment and yes, the anger. That's why it is so difficult to maintain a positive attitude while experiencing hardships. Feeling negative thoughts is not a sign of weakness or failure in self-awareness. These feelings are a signpost of acknowledgment of what areas of your life need to be observed, worked on, and then cleared. Without these feelings we will never understand or embrace the beauty of their opposite emotion. So feel all of your emotions in every situation you find yourself and then let them go. Otherwise you will be forced to live the same types of situations of struggles until you do.
Infinite blessings my friends.