Have you ever had an experience and wondered, how did I attract that into my life? It might be a person that you are in conflict with, or a physical ailment, or a problem with you finances. One of the dangers surrounding these so called negative experiences is that you might have the tendency to blame yourself or take it as something you did wrong. It’s as if life is supposed to be cheery and happy and that we are never to experience a challenge. Challenges are equal to “I’m not good enough!”

This is not the truth. These shame spirals in reaction to negative events in our lives is merely another way to think less of ourselves, pull us away from our higher selves and downright be cruel to ourselves. Challenges are not punishments they are roads to becoming closer to your wisdom, your intuition, the love Divine that is the very essence of your being. If we can treat our challenges as roadmaps to going deeper, becoming stronger spiritual beings and building a greater consciousness, I believe we are own our way to an even more accelerated spiritual evolution affecting our lives and our world.

I am in the midst of a challenging experience right now. I will admit that my first reaction was why am I attracting this. However, I immediately was able to see the challenge as a lesson plan from the Divine within me to test my real beliefs about myself, my life, and my mission on this earth. Could I bring everything I’ve professed to know to this challenge? Could I rise my consciousness high enough beyond having to be right or make someone else wrong? Could I stay in integrity? Could I just boldly love myself through this and project love outward instead of moving into a useless state of defensiveness and anger? I won’t say it is easy, but I will say, yes, I can and I am.

Our world is in a state of great shift right now, and every thought we think, every mood we choose to indulge in, and every time we can stay in love and integrity with our thoughts matters greatly. We are each the microcosm in a great macrocosm. We live and move and have our being in a great matrix, a field where all energy is pulling, rippling and moving as one. What will we give to this field? It’s not a matter of fighting what’s happening or resisting it, its a matter of surrender and giving way to love.

I believe it is time to clean up our own lives, face our own stuff and move through it to the other side. If we say we want peace, can we be at peace with ourselves? If we say we want peace, can we move out of our own confusion? We each hold the answer to the birth of our new earth. It is time to clean our inner houses and move into the greatest expression of ourselves.

Dr. Ernest Holmes once wrote, “Love is a Cosmic Force whose sweep is irresistible.” Love is an actual energy, our energy. “God is Love. Love is God.” If the Kingdom of Heaven truly lies within, then this isn’t for one person, it is for all of us. However, it is time to bring what is within out.

For me, it begins with taking my challenges, turning them to wisdom. It takes loving myself more. It takes a deep examination of the beliefs that are running my show. It takes focusing on what makes me passionate. It takes unleashing my creativity. It takes surrender to what is present and thinking anew and thinking anew again. There are answers in the unknown.

We are each an expression of Divine Energy vibrating at the level of our recognition of ourselves. When we raise our vibration, we raise our lives, and we raise the vibration of the whole. Do you feel the pull to go the other way? It’s strong, but you are stronger. Love is always greater than hate. No matter what it looks like, the Universe is one of Harmony and wholeness and it is always pulling us in that direction.

Love and Aloha,

Rev. Rita