Dealing with and Overcoming Adversity – 4 Steps to Speed the Process

Everyone has experienced some form of hardship in his or her life. How do you deal with conflict and hardships? Are you still suffering, even though some trial, challenge or event occurred many eons ago? If this is so, why is it that time has not healed your pain? Furthermore, is there an effective way to speed the process?

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From my personal observations, there is a way to deal with hardships and hasten the process of recovery. My childhood was fraught with horrific pain. When I was only nine years old, a stranger raped me. In addition, I have experienced many life-changing events, including:

• The inappropriate sexual contact from an alcoholic father;
• Being stalked and pursued by sexual predators;
• Growing up in a dysfunctional family;
• A near-death experience;
• Being mugged at gunpoint;
• Surviving melanoma, the most serious form of skin cancer;
• Suffering a complete nervous breakdown; and
• Living with many debilitating illnesses, including a rare immune deficiency disease.

I suffered many years because of these trials. Time did not heal my pain. It was always with me. However, after meeting a shaman in 2007, a constructive transformation took place. I realized that, despite my pain, there was a quicker way to deal with my hardships.

Some steps to speed the process include:

1. Understand the concept introduced to me by a shaman named Charles
   Crooks, “We are all part of the whole and not separate.” If you are part of the whole and not separate, everything is included within, both the constructive attributes of light and the destructive attributes of darkness.
2. Do not allow yourself to react, because of judgment from others or within yourself, causing you to feel guilt, shame or anger. Believing that you are separate from the whole can cause you to feel you are not equal, setting up the illusion that something is lacking. You may seek to gain acceptance from others to replace what you perceive is missing. To gain acceptance, you may be forced to either exercise power or place yourself in a weaker position than others. Judgment is a state of domination, either over others or by others, which shows that, as quoted by Charles Crooks, “Judgment is not a spiritual process, but rather a process of slavery that turns one away from the light within and towards the darker path.”
3. Realize you are not at fault. How could you be at fault for something based upon your understanding when your hardship occurred? Furthermore, if you are part of the whole, you are equal and, therefore, judgment does not exist. 
4. It is beneficial to dissolve destructive aspects such as guilt, shame and anger in order to move forward and heal.

It is important to recognize that you have a choice. To see results more quickly, you can choose to focus on the light and all the constructive power that is available within you. On the other hand, it is your right to choose to live in your dark pain. It all depends on you. How fast do you wish to release your suffering?