Recently, a friend jokingly said to me, “I’d be such a great mother if I didn’t have kids!” The picture of being a great mother wasn’t one she was relating to at the moment, she felt derailed by her children.
If we never went off the track we felt we should always be coasting gleefully on, we might not be available to the gifts that we learn when we careen off the road. I once heard Marianne Williamson say that our greatest spiritual learning doesn’t happen on the days where we cruise through life. Certainly, I would always (consciously at least) prefer to learn through joy rather than suffering. However, most of us (myself included) probably still learn the most through challenge.
It occurred to me recently, when faced with a challenging situation, that I was right where I needed to be. There were zillions of inherent lessons. It wasn’t an opportunity gone astray—it was a deep healing. If only I would’ve give up my ideas about what should of happened. Only then could I realize that it was exactly as it was supposed to be, it had come up for healing, and now I can choose again.
Maybe we can re-frame derailments and let the experiences be what they were/are and move on. Many of us on a serious spiritual path may spend as much or more time beating ourselves up for being derailed as we actually felt being “derailed.”
Many people who study The Secret come to me with this issue. They feel they are “doing it wrong” or ashamed that things aren’t manifesting the way they want. However, another interpretation of derailment is as a clearing. In Illusions, Richard Bach writes, “There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in its hands. You seek problems because you need their gifts.”
What if we choose to bless and accept our challenges and embrace what we can about them? Our fear may try to stop us. In her book, Fire in the Soul, Joan Borysenko writes “In fear, we wish only to rid ourselves of apparent negativity rather than searching our souls for its gifts.” If we let go of expectations and fear and stop white knuckling it, we may find the peace of acceptance.
Maybe we were and are right on track after all!
