Swimming Against the Current
I discovered a few years ago that life did not have to be tough. This may not seem earth shattering to you, but to me, it was! Up until that time, if things could go wrong, they did! I couldn’t understand why everything “bad” always happened to me. What did I do, that caused me to deserve a tough and punished life? Life seemed incredibly unfair, to the point, you could see it in my eyes, you could hear it in my voice, my body physically was falling apart, and you could see it through the depression and anxiety I was exemplifying.
Life became tough at the age of 40, not because my age had anything to do with it, but it was just the period of time in my life, it all hit. It started with a divorce, and not only a few weeks after the decision was made to end the marriage, my dad informed me that he was diagnosed with stage 4, terminal pancreatic cancer at the age of 64 years. If this wasn’t enough to throw my world into a spiral, my 5 year old daughter, was rushed into emergency with a ruptured appendix requiring emergency surgery while my dad was ambulanced into that same hospital not knowing if he would make it through the night. Oh, and it did not stop there! Why not throw in a cervical cancer scare, a few full hip replacement surgeries due to bad genetics and a herniated disc in a back that took me out physically for 3 months, followed by an acreage home that sold and a new one bought on the day of my dad’s funeral. The ending of a marriage, the ending of a life, and the ending of a business, which I had also decided to leave.
Life seemed pretty low at points and tough to understand, but I kept moving forward, as what other option did I have? It was not until a girlfriend asked me to join her one Sunday to attend a spiritual gathering. Having no influence in my past from the church and lacking a strong belief system, I was hesitant to go, but being at such a low point, I took her up on it. It was this moment that changed my life and helped to give me understanding and purpose. It was that day that I met another individual who took me under her wing and helped me to learn, believe and trust in a higher power outside of myself. Whether you call this higher power, God, Buddha, Spirit, Universe, your Creator or any other form that offers you grace, it doesn’t matter. What matters is, that in this higher power, I came to understand my purpose.
My purpose was to struggle because in every struggle there is learning. My purpose was to learn to relinquish the need to control my situation and instead to let life guide and lead me to where I am to go. It was to gain understanding that when life gets tough, it is your higher being’s way of re-directing you elsewhere, to better serve your purpose. It was to bring me to you so I could help communicate that life is about living. It is about enjoyment. It is about following your dreams and passions. It is about chasing your dreams and not the dollar. It is about loving and being kind to the people around you. It is about being brave and courageous; and not letting our demons such as obstacles, fear, and our need to control our future drive our being.
When life gets tough, as it always does, ask yourself, if you are swimming against the current? Are you trying to control your future or the outcome? If you say yes, then STOP. Stop, sit in peace, and listen to your inner being. It is trying to tell you something. It is telling you that what you are doing is not working. Start to seek peace, swim with the current, and in essence, “go with the flow”. By allowing the current to take you in the direction it is going, you will find your happiness, you will find new opportunity, you will discover your dreams and you will find your greatest purpose. Be ProFound!
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