Going Backwards in Life

I have been working on self-growth and self-improvement full time for over 3 years now.  After a while on this path, certain patterns start to emerge.  One major one for me is the feeling of going backwards.  One day I may feel on a roll, making amazing progress in many aspects of my mind and life.  The next moment, I find myself facing a familiar dilemma from say 3 months ago and then 7 months ago and all my life it seems.  A dilemma that keeps reappearing in my life.  Something I felt and hoped would have been let go long ago, only to sneakily reappear a bit further on in life to make me feel like I am going backwards.

Situations like this are often met with frustration within me and then doubt of whether or not I am actually learning ANYTHING!

My fellow co-adventurers on this mission called Life.  If you encounter similar feelings and fears do not worry.  Here is what I have figured out and what may actually be working in your life as well.

We are NOT going backwards!  (Woo hoo!)

Some lessons in life are intricate and full of complexity.  Learning a lesson that Life has provided for us does not always feel "good".  Once we learn a part of it we feel relief and are able to let that part go.  This does not mean; however, that we have learned everything there is to learn from this lesson.  It is like a video game with levels.  Once we complete one level we feel great, celebrate, take a break.  Then we go back to conquer the next level in order to complete the entire game.

Life presents us with lessons level by level.  Once we conquer one level in a lesson sometimes we are given a break.  The break may be a minute long or a few months long, but eventually, if the full lesson has not yet been learned we are presented with it again some time down the road.  We recognize the lesson from our past.  We remember working on it.  We wonder; 

Why is this happening again?  
Am I going backwards?  
Am I making ANY real progress?! 

The lesson reemerges not to take us back to the beginning, but to pick up from where we have left off so we can continue learning.  Life is a great instructor!  It pushes us to learn, but at our own pace without overloading us to the extreme.

Some lessons are extremely challenging, yes.  But let us be honest.  Once the lesson is learned life becomes so much more amazing!

What are you Doing? If God Ruled the World.

 *  In the following idea, the word God is used to describe a concept , but for your convenience please substitute any word you feel more comfortable with; Universe, Spirit, the Great Void.....  I also refer to God in the masculine form, only, because that is a traditional view of most people in the part of the world I live in.  Yes, God is probably not a man, nor a woman nor a plant.  As a matter of fact God could be anything or nothing or who even knows.  But for the purpose of illustrating this idea please pretend God is a He.  Thanks.

 


Yes, if God ruled the world completely, our lives would be perfect and beautiful.

Doesn't that sound nice? 

Actually, if you believe in God you probably believe that He DOES rule the world.
Wait then.... Where is our ultimate perfection?  Where is our total happiness and beauty?
 
May I suggest that the loop hole lies in Free Will.  Each individual on Earth has Free Will.  Yet, we may not be using our Free Will in the most effective manner.

If you are like me, someone who missed the memo on the proper uses of Free Will somewhere along the line, consider the following.

Where are you right now in life?  Are you happy?  How did you use your Free Will to get here?  Have you even been aware of using your Free Will in life?  How can you use your Free Will to get to the next place you want to go?  Where is the next place you want to go?  Why do you think that is where you need to be?

Too many questions? 

Suppose for a moment that God gave us this life and has a magnificent plan for us.  All we have to do is work with Him and follow His Grand Plan for our life.  This is where Free Will comes in.  He gave us a choice.  We can work together and have a magnificent experience according to His Grand Plan or we can choose to work on our own and see where that leads us.

The second choice means that at any given time we could "cancel out" God's plans for us and take over ourselves.   Well that is what is happening.  We took over planning and running our lives so much that we turned into a society of DOers.  We DO it all ourselves.  We pride ourselves on how well and how fast we can DO.  We Do and Do, but without any idea of the Grand Plan in place.  Which means we are constantly guessing at what we should Do next.  Since we are not following the Grand Plan we are Doing ourselves further into Pointlessness and Confusion.   We Did ourselves into the situation we are in right now.


Well why would God not step in to help us then?

Because God is a respectable fellow.  He fully respects our desire and choice for Free Will.  He is not going to step in and push us out of the way.  Nope.  He will patiently wait until we ourselves decide to ask Him for help.  We need to decide that this might be the right time to stop guessing in life and return back to following the Grand Plan that was designed for us.  All we have to do is invite God back to help us along.

What?!  And give up our Free Will?!  Sounds terrible!

Let us consider.

Would you not give up your Free Will to live your ultimate Life?  No need to answer. 

We are not actually being asked to give up our Free Will.  On the contrary, we are encouraged to exercise it.   We must use our Free Will to decide to ask God for help with our lives.  We must use our Free Will to decide to Trust God, to entrust our lives with Him. 

Working together like this we will reach our dreams.

We Trust, and He Does the work.  What could be better?