Challenges you have been blessed with?

[Adonai One]

What are some challenges and trials that you have been blessed with in this incarnation? I view them as blessings because they are lessons and challenges to be learned from. You only have to share as much or as little as you want.

My main three are:

- Constant fear of rejection from other-selves.

- Depression and loneliness when there is so much love and life around me.

- Extreme stress and anxiety when under pressure or a time constraint.

Feel free to give advice. : )

L/L

[Ludi]

edited

[Adonai One]

I would respond, but then you'd just modify your original post to change the question. So why bother?

When have I done this, Zenmaster?

Without shame, here:
http://bring4th.org/forums/showthread.php?tid=6770

I am sorry that has bothered you. You considered the title misleading so I felt compelled to change it. I altered other things but only to further a more focused discussion. My sincerest apologies.

---

-Being gaslighted

-Being physically/mentally abused

-Addiction

-Being aware of secret information (against my will)

You have my condolences, Lightseeker. I have dealt with emotional abuse although this might be a limited comparison.

[Ludi]

edited

[suraj]

Challenges / Trials already resolved:

- Coming to terms with sexual abuse (This taught the importance avoiding victim mentality and lessons of forgiveness)
- Coming to terms with my sexuality although raised in conservative family .(This taught me important lessons of Self Acceptance / Self Love)

Challenges / Trials still facing :

- to See divinity in everyone and everything at all times

[Ludi]

edited

[Spaced]

My biggest challenge has always been trusting in myself

[AnthroHeart]

A challenge of mine is not always seeing the magic in life.
Not always feeling like I'm a wanderer, that the place I can call home is not here.
And becoming dependent on medication for my condition is another challenge.
Sometimes I'm challenged with seeing the upside to life.

[Wander-Man]

Being the disciple of a psychic STS adept...talk about a horrible boss..

[Plenum]

I would respond, but then you'd just modify your original post to change the question. So why bother?

When have I done this, Zenmaster?

you learn by stating an opinion, and then seeing the response to it.

the flow of time in this experience is seeing what happens when you try something. Others too, can learn from seeing the flow of interaction.

editing, in fact, and editing the past is a misunderstanding of the process.

you mentioned here that you felt 'shame'. Editing out that shame is a lack of acceptance. What was done was done, and what was said was said. It just asks for forgiveness.

- -

in regards to the original question, one of the main challenges I've faced in this incarnation is being born an outsider, in the sense of being a racial outsider during childhood. I grew up Asian in a very white neighbourhood, and while things have changed massively in terms of demographics in the last 15 years, during the first half of my life the almost expected rejection by race was something that was most challenging and confronting to my sense of self. One of the consequences of this sort of childhood was the development of a strong will on my part, almost defiantly, and a cultivation of personal identify under the threat of the outsider label. I see myself as a bit of a 'forerunner' in challenging the racial dynamics of the region in which I grew up.

while not rare, by all means, in different parts of the world, this racial confrontation challenges the level of acceptance in the prevailing society.

[reeay]

Similar experience here, Plenum. It is a great lesson. I realized that my rejection of one ethnic/cultural identity and total embrace of my other ethnic/cultural identity (due to more acceptance from that group) was an imbalance. Once I sufficiently dropped my attachment to wanting acceptance and inclusion from external sources, my baggage got lighter. More room for self-acceptance and autonomy.

[Charles]

Loving father's early death.

Family (specific, mother's) lying betrayal and cruelty. (This was a result of a soul contract which I asked for, and which she exaggerated.)

Sister's thievery.

Ah . . . but that's been worked through, and that is all past. Understood and forgiven. I feel perhaps like suraj, we are not victims, we are survivors.

Now: Fear of failure, created thousands of years ago. In a past life I made a mistake. This mistake cost hundreds of lives.

Living under this fear of failure, I have not fully realized mySelf in this life. I need believe what I am, and act upon it, but I'm frightened. My healing will occur with my doing, and my doing will help many others. I'm working on it.

[Ankh]

- Open up my heart. To all beings. In all situations. Offer them the love and the light of One Infinite Creator. (<----that would be so awesome, if...)

[Brittany]

Low self esteem has always been my greatest challenge. I've always been a perfectionist in every aspect of my life, and never lived up to my own enormously high standards. It is very easy for me to slide into a cycle of self-deprecation, lethargic depression, then some sort of snobby ego trip that is supposed to somehow patch everything up. I've fallen to the temptation to victimize myself many, many times as a coping mechanism to deal with the fact that I don't really like myself, which only brings further shame, as I feel like I'm required to be mature and stable at all times, which is of course ridiculous.

Some other challenges:

-Being an empath and learning how to shield myself so I don't constantly take in other people's crap. Also, learning that I'm not responsible for the behavior of other people and there's no reason to constantly worry about what other people are thinking/doing.

-Being too left-brained and trying to rationalize every aspect of my life, including those parts which are entirely intuitive. At the same time, sometimes I can be impulsive and throw logic to the winds, operating entirely on instinct and displaying a severe lack of wisdom in my actions. I seem to swing back and forth between these two extremes, while rarely finding the balance between them.

-Getting lost in my vivid imagination and living in a fantasy land. So many times I've gotten obsessed with past lives or conspiracy theories or obscure esoteric literature to the point that my daily life goes neglected, and I usually end up making a fool of myself before I'm jolted back to reality. It's also easy for me to slide into the escapist mentality, fantasizing about the mother ship coming and taking me away instead of dealing with the notion of personal responsibility for my own life. (I still wouldn't complain if the mother ship showed up. :p)

-Dealing with abandonment issues from my childhood. This has caused me to develop the tendency to attach myself to other people in a very clingy way, and I go to pieces if I'm not constantly showered with attention and praise. A part of myself I really don't like to look at. Also, sifting through all the other effed up stuff from my childhood, which I spent many years simply trying to forget.

-Trying to be a better listener. I've realized that often when a person is talking to me I'm simply waiting for them to stop talking so I can say something else. I tend to talk about myself a lot and be very self-absorbed, then I wonder why a lot of people stop talking to me after a short period of time. As one of my good friends put it: "I realized that nobody gave a sh!t about what I was saying. This was followed shortly by the realization that this was because I didn't give a sh!t what they were saying."

-Having an acute sensory sensitivity that makes bright lights and high-pitched noises painful to me (the sound of whistling or clanking silverware has just about brought me to tears), along with skin that bruises at a firm touch and very picky eating habits. The world always seems too loud, too bright and too busy, and I'm constantly in a state of sensory overload, which makes irritability and the tendency to seclude myself prominent factors in my personality. Quiet, solitary settings are my favorite type, though this can get very lonely, so it's a matter of deciding which form of discomfort I'd like to experience on any particular day.

-Accepting all of the above in unconditional love for myself. That is a challenge I face daily.

[Marc]

-The early death of my father. He died from HIV mixed with cancer. He was homosexual but grew up in a conservative Christian family and was never allowed to confront that aspect of himself. He became two people of extremes; one that was the perfect Christian pastor/dad and the other was an extreme indulgence of sexuality with many many men. He was never accepted for who he was and made extreme choices instead of finding some balance. It also led to a host of lies in my family and gossip from the church.

-Leaving all I knew for the sake of following what I knew to be true.

[Wai]

Eight years ago, a person I loved deeply told me that she wanted to end her life. I laughed and told her to stop making jokes about suicide. She smiled and said, "I will love you more in my next life." Three days later, she died from a massive overdose of sleeping pills. I could have saved her had I not ignore her plea for help.

One of my challenges - combining love and wisdom.

[Charles]

Perhaps you could have saved her, but this is unknown. Perhaps eight days later, instead of three, you just can't know. She loves and forgives, know that.

[Unbound]

Being human.