Exactly one month ago today, I drove tentatively into the fog and watched the old and familiar landscape I called my life dissolve discreetly into the mist.

Although the path before me was less than clear, I followed the whispers of the wind that spoke directly to my heart and took the road less travelled, hoping to find some peace, purpose, and clarity for this new epoch.

Prior to this moment, I had always done the same things, each time expecting a much different result. So, after listening to various discussions led by Michael Singer on surrendering to the flow of life with minimal resistance, I took heed and approached an opportunity with a wide-eyed curiosity, wondering what life had in store for me this time around. After all, I reasoned, nothing is ever really a mistake. Everything, and I mean every last thing, serves some kind of monumental purpose, however elusive to us at the time.

As most of us know by now, however, things seldom turn out exactly as we expect them to, and within a couple of weeks, I realized that although I had left an uncomfortable situation that pushed my buttons, this new arrangement wasn’t much easier and came with it’s own unique and unanticipated set of challenges.

For one thing, I was living with other people, which triggered my social anxiety—a deeply ingrained pattern of thoughts and behaviours that leave me wanting to flee from forced interactions and withdraw further into myself. Unfortunately, these roommates misconstrued my quiet and introverted nature as unfriendliness, and my reticence to interact as a mark of snobbery or disinterest in them and their lives. To make matters more complicated, I discovered through the grapevine that certain things had been said about me behind my back that hurt me to know, thus triggering my rejection wound.

After hearing about what had transpired, I told myself that I would leave no latter than in a month or two. There was no way in hell I was going to remain in a place where I was barely even tolerated—at least not for long!

So, with that, I began to decide, promptly, which bags to pack, what to discard, and when to leave.

Truth be told, I’ve struggled with social anxiety for most of my life now. I feel other people’s energetic vibrations implicitly and frequently become drained by too much interaction, usually needing to withdraw and isolate myself for a while to recoup. As an introvert and an HSP (Highly Sensitive Person), my primary fuel source is, and has always been, within myself. Too much time spent with others leaves me feeling as though I am running on empty. I have never been a social butterfly, and I often tell the people I am closest to that I thrive better when I am alone rather than in other people’s company—especially when I feel energetically misaligned with them. In fact, if living alone wasn’t so damn expensive, I’d never live with another person ever again.

Regardless of my natural proclivity toward shyness and introversion, however, and despite inadvertently coming off as a quintessential ice queen, sticks and stones did in fact break my bones. Due to this, I was left feeling angry and confused by the words and actions of these other people.

Because I am on a journey of expanding consciousness and self-discovery, my newfound tendency is to look within rather than point a finger of blame at others. So, as a result, I became increasingly introspective and asked myself the following questions:

1. Why have I always felt so anxious around other people? What am I so afraid of? Judgment? Rejection? Why do these things haunt me so much?

2. Does being myself around these specific types of people frighten me? If so, why? Why must I always anticipate rejection and judgment from them? Why do I hold back deeper parts of myself in fear of being seen as some kind of anomaly?

3. Why am I so afraid of feeling hurt? A feeling won’t kill me. All feelings are just waves of energy passing through. No one has ever died of a bad feeling, and besides, why should someone’s opinions of me dictate or inform my sense of well-being?

Deep down, I knew this was a “me-problem,” and that if handled consciously and with pure intention could lay the groundwork for a profound inner transformation, away from a painful timidity to a more stable sense of self-confidence.

Surprisingly, days later, an event was precipitated to rattle my self-imposed cage and force me to lay my fears plainly in the light. This time, instead of cowering in a corner or actively avoiding people so that I could protect myself from the pain of rejection and judgment, I faced my fears head-on and showed these people my true colours. The end-result was that I spent the rest of the day feeling lighter, as though I had lost several pounds of deadweight, and I started to talk to other people in ways I had never quite summoned the courage to speak to them before. I said things I’d been wanting to say for a long time but was afraid to, and the words rolled so effortlessly off of my tongue. I felt strong and empowered.

Later on that day, I remembered my favourite chapter in Eckhart Tolle’s seminal work, The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment. This chapter is titled, “Beyond Happiness And Unhappiness There Is Peace.” In it, Eckhart Tolle speaks to the fact that even difficult moments are scared; that what hurts us often blesses us, as Rumi would say. Obviously, what had happened to me was a fine example of this, and in hindsight, I could see that it was all happening for me—that is, for my own personal growth and evolution.

Below I will share 10 of the most insightful and thought-provoking quotes from this chapter, and hopefully, you too will begin to perceive your own challenges as harbingers of growth.

1. “Do you truly know what is positive and what is negative? Do you have the total picture? There have been many people for whom limitation, failure, loss, illness, or pain in whatever form turned out to be their greatest teacher. It taught them to let go of false self-images and superficial ego-dictated goals and desires. It gave them depth, humility, and compassion. It made them more real.” (p. 177)

2. Whenever anything negative happens to you, there is a deep lesson concealed within it, although you may not see it at the time. Even a brief illness or accident can show you what is real and unreal in your life, what ultimately matters and what doesn’t.” (p. 178).

3. “Seen from a high perspective, conditions are always positive. To be more precise: they are neither positive nor negative. They are as they are. And when you live in complete acceptance of what is—which is the only way to live—there is no “good” or “bad” in your life anymore. There is only a higher good—which includes the “bad.” (p. 178)

4. “When you live in complete acceptance of what is, that is the end of all drama in your life. Nobody can even have an argument with you, no matter how hard he or she tries.” (p. 182)

5. “Through allowing the ‘is-ness’ of all things, a deeper dimension underneath the play of opposites reveals itself to you as an abiding presence, an unchanging deep stillness, an uncaused joy beyond good and bad. This is the joy of Being, the peace of God.” (p. 183).

6. “On the level of form, there is birth and death, creation and destruction, growth and dissolution, of seemingly separate forms. This is reflected everywhere: in the life cycle of a star or a planet, a physical body, a tree, a flower, in the rise and fall of nations, political systems, civilizations, and in the inevitable cycles of gain and loss in the life of an individual.” (p. 183).

7. “The down cycle is absolutely essential for your spiritual realization. You must have failed deeply on some level or experienced some deep loss or pain to be drawn to the spiritual dimension. Or perhaps your very success became empty and meaningless and so turned out to be a failure. Failure lies concealed in every success, and success in every failure. In this world, which is to say on some level of form, everybody ‘fails’ sooner or later, of course, and every achievement eventually comes to naught. All forms are impermanent.” (p. 184).

8. “The cyclical nature of the universe is closely linked with the impermanence of all things and situations. The Buddha made this a central part of his teaching. All conditions are highly unstable and in constant flux, or, as he put it, impermanence is a characteristic of every condition, every situation you will ever encounter in your life. It will change, disappear, or no longer satisfy you. Impermanence is also central to Jesus’ teaching: ‘Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rest consume and where thieves break in and steal…'” (p. 185)

9. “The Buddha taught that even your happiness is dukkha—a Pali word meaning ‘suffering.’ It is inseparable from its opposite. This means that your happiness and unhappiness are in fact one. Only the illusion of time separates them.” (p. 186).

10. “To offer no resistance to life is to be in a state of grace, ease, and lightness. This state is then no longer dependent upon things being in a certain way, good or bad. It seems almost paradoxical, yet when your inner dependency on form is gone, the general conditions of your life, the outer forms, tend to improve greatly. Things, people, or conditions that you thought you needed for your happiness now come to you with no struggle or effort on your part, and you are free to enjoy them—while they last. All of these things, of course, will still pass away, cycles will come and go, but with dependency gone there is no fear of loss anymore. Life flows with ease.” (p. 188).

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