You’re not crazy if you’re awakening and observing that life is getting harder, not easier. The difficulty dial is being cranked up to be commensurate with your level of expansion. Anything less would not be formative for the evolution of your consciousness.
This is also true on the macro:
Old souls take hard lives. Young souls take easy lives. The more difficult your life script, the more developed your soul. Tough lives are reserved for top players. Easy lives are given to new players.
Being at a disadvantage, in whatever facet, allows for more intense soul growth.
The difficulty of your struggle is commensurate with your soul’s level of maturity. A hard life is indicative of an old soul.
When life’s difficulty dial gets cranked up, older souls seek wisdom instead of falling into victimhood. They accept the fact that they are servants of their soul while on Earth, and they trust that they will be presented with experiences which are most beneficial to the evolution of their consciousness.
Mature souls voluntarily choose to undergo intermittent periods of pain during their pre-birth planning, but also possess the wherewithal to endure the trauma while remaining alert for learnings throughout. That background alertness is how mature consciousness behaves, and honing this awareness in the midst of upheaval is one way it’s sharpened.
All the shit that comes your way exists not to break you down, but to forge a stronger soul through the sacrifice made by your physical avatar.
The matrix is a difficult, unforgiving place, but it is not out to get you. On the contrary, our souls preordain certain traumatic experiences (within the matrix) with the intention of sharpening, not ruining, us.
The price to be paid in exchange for that expansion is a phase of distress, and, sometimes, pain.
One of the things that makes periodic pain so torturous is the idea that it may never end, or not having a definite date of completion.
But the fact is: what you endure is a temporary lesson, not a life sentence.
One of the most important lessons my Dad taught me early on is that there are very few things that can happen to you that are truly permanent. Almost everything is repairable or containable. For the things that aren’t, trust that you will eventually find some way to alleviate the issue to an acceptable inconvenience instead of a major detractor.
Sometimes, the only objective, or expectation, of your Higher Self is for you to merely survive. You just have to be exposed and endure. That’s it. You don’t need to do anything more.
There is always insight hiding within the crevices of pain. Once you realize this truth, you may even proactively seek out forms of distress for the expansion it can provide.
Spiritual adepts enjoy phases of tolerable pain, knowing these are portals to the greatest depths of self.
Being stretched to your limits can be an oddly blissful experience once you become accustomed.
To the soul, nothing is really good or bad. It seeks the full spectrum of human emotion, a balanced tapestry of feels including both friction and flow.
Gut-wrenching torment felt as a human is stored by the soul as an intense but important imprint that will be cherished forever.
What you process as pain the soul absorbs as expansive friction and stores as wisdom.
Pain also leads to perspective. As the Roman poet Ovid said, “be patient and tough; someday this pain will be useful to you.”
You might not see it while engrossed in the shitstorm, but if you can survive the blows, eventually, the tsunami will stop and the light will come out.
In the midst of serious trauma – torture, abuse, and the like – try your best to just let it wash over you. Try to relax and drop all resistance.
As you do, your consciousness will sort of zoom out, and while you will still feel some pain, it will not hurt the same.
You will realize that although there is a body absorbing punishment, that body is not actually who you are. You are the awareness behind it.
You will not be the same after enduring serious trauma – who would be? It’s okay to allow yourself to be changed by traumatic experiences. It’s supposed to change you. Let change be okay.
Those who remain in the safe zone and never undergo any trials never grow. They can’t.
Pain is one of the Higher Self’s most proven tools to catalyze evolution.
Without suffering, we would stagnate into conformity, routine, and complacency.
This is the only lens through which suffering can make any sense.
Instead of being seen as a curse, it can be welcomed as a signpost of spiritual maturity which holds a gift of rare learning – hand delivered to you and you alone.
This whole time you thought you were being punished. In reality, you were being sharpened, prepared, and elevated.