by Zena Cooper: How to uncover beauty in challenging times of adversity and embrace the lessons that it brings…
t’s sometimes in the darkest of places that true beauty is found. Adversity makes you look in places that you never knew existed. This untouched beauty can be the key to inviting the light back into your life – so enjoy the search.
We’ll all experience adversity at some point in our lives, whether it’s a physical, mental, emotional, social, spiritual, or financial adversity. We won’t be the first to go through such a thing in life and we won’t be the last. We can, however, become a lead in how we choose to deal with it. Facing adversity can be one of the most powerful springboards into living a transformed reality full of newly discovered beauty.
Despite how it feels when we’re going through them, adversity and challenges can bring about many positive changes that may not have been possible if life had been going smoothly. For any healing of the mind and body to occur, we need to step through some stages to be able to appreciate the life lessons adversity has taught us. Believing that a challenge is a blessing may not be possible from the outset, but soul-searching in these dark moments can help us begin the path to discovering the beauty that lies beneath.
Resilience, discovering a new meaning in life, finding faith, increasing creativity, remaining humble, and finding new aspects of self are just some of the ways that adversity can bring about beautiful changes in life. Learning to trust that what you’re going through is part of a bigger picture can be tricky in the beginning, but the more you can surrender, the more will be revealed to you.
The more you can learn to embrace the challenges that crop up and utilize them for change into living the most beautiful life possible, the more you step into freedom.
Here are six steps to finding beauty in adversity that will help to transform your relationship with that unwanted gate-crasher in your life:
- Accept
You are where you are in life for a reason that you may not be aware of at present. Battling to be elsewhere drains you of the energy you need to move into healing. It can feel like your smooth-running life is being gate-crashed by a very rude intruder when adversity arises. But what if this is meant to happen? This gate-crasher may be the catalyst in helping you live a more beautiful version of your life that will bring about magical changes.
- Forgive
Your ego will always lead you to believe that you must battle through a painful process to be able to forgive yourself and others. Blaming another or yourself for the adversity you find yourself in helps nobody. Forgiveness is key to living a pain-free life and will help you to cut any ties to past hurts, bitterness, or resentment that will only keep you trapped whilst others around you carry on living freely.
Learn to forgive the adversity, yourself, and others involved. Let it fade into the background and allow the beauty in the newness to emerge into the foreground in your life. Forgiveness is never a weakness; it’s always a strength.
- Love
Asking you to fall in love with whatever is causing you hurt may seem like an impossible task, but what if you were asked to love what the adversity has brought into your life? Love is omnipresent; it’s not created or destroyed, just embraced or rejected. There will be love energy in the adversity that you’re facing. It’s never too late to discover the beauty in living with your challenge. Learning to love your imperfections is just as important as learning to love your perfections. Loving your life helps you take that love out into the world to share with others around you.
- Observe
When you choose to observe from a distance rather than being drawn into drama, you’ve more control over how you feel and respond. The beauty in choosing to observe is that you can think about things logically and not get too caught up in the emotions that can lead to panic. If you choose to only use emotions to react to the adversity that you find yourself in, then you’re unable to see the bigger picture in life. Take time to learn lessons from others that have faced similar adversities, celebrate the beauty that you find in them, and bring that same beauty into your own life.
- Affirm
This may be your life now, but change can always happen. Using positive affirmations to help you get through things will help you with your present and future life. Using affirmations such as, “I am successfully living with…” instead of, “I suffer from…” can make such a difference in how you deal with adversity and help you get through anything that life throws at you.
Using positive affirmations in relation to your current situation is an investment which will reap an eternal reward. It is OK to acknowledge and feel the pain that adversity brings but dwelling on it for a long period of time will prevent you from moving on. If you affirm to yourself, others, and the universe that you’re going to see the positives in your situation then you’ll notice more and more positives being attracted to you and life will get better.
- Transcend
When you expand out of your comfort zone and start living in a different realm outside of everyday consciousness, you can learn to transcend into a different way of being. Some will embrace it with passion whilst others will shy away from the unknown. Transcending the adversity they’re facing allows a person to access a higher part of themselves. In taking on the lifelong learning course of transcending adversity, you enter the ever-enlightening circle of entering the unknown.
Growth can always be found in the hiccups that crop up in our lives. I was born with only partial sight, which then deteriorated, but this enabled me to see beauty in places where many wouldn’t have thought of looking. I wouldn’t have met the most beautiful soul in my guide dog, Munch, if I hadn’t needed him. When using the sight that lies in the heart to interpret the world, life becomes a more blissful experience where anything can be overcome.
When you choose to see the world in a way that holds nothing but beauty, you choose to live a life connected to a source that is bigger than you and holds the answers to all you ever need to know. Loving where you are in life regardless of adversity will free you from what you once thought was impossible to escape. Turn pity parties into blissful-living bashes and limiting beliefs into barrier-smashing talents – and be prepared for a happier life that awaits.
