It’s often said that life is hard, and I believe it’s designed to be this way. I think life supposed to be difficult so that our souls can truly evolve. You see, we are forever striving for our divine potential, and this is best achieved through human lessons. That is why we come to this challenging place.
Recently, I have come to look at life as enlistment at Bootcamp Earth – where the most brutal training grounds exist with the toughest courses available. Here, we embody personal traits that are at odds with each other, and these push us from day to day. Our lessons are built in, and we can’t ignore them.
We constantly make mistakes here, which can bring an underlying belief that we’re not doing things right, but we are supposed to get life all wrong because this is how we grow. Our muddy challenges act as a constant teaching mechanism, frustrating us continually, until we see that the only solution is to grow rather than to struggle. Every difficult moment is here for us to learn.
Each one of us is incredibly brave for signing up for this bootcamp – for planning difficult lives. You see, the human experience is so different from the blissful place we come from. And we feel the loss of our true home, making life all the more tough. When we come here, we are accompanied by just a few people from our spiritual core group, so we often feel like we don’t belong or aren’t truly loved. But, we are able to really test ourselves in this land of negativity, and to gain experience of the full scope of creation.
The truth is that our souls yearn to grow, and to reach higher towards God. And so we find ourselves again at Bootcamp Earth.
If I’m to be completely honest, I will say that I’m upset about the endless suffering I see at this bootcamp. Of course, I can’t begin to fathom God’s all-encompassing love and scope, and I feel gratitude for my many blessings. But, I will share that I don’t understand the incessant violence of our rough world, especially considering pre-birth amnesia, the ignorance of youth, and dark systems of control. In my own limiting amnesia, I find myself asking: “Why are the atrocities here allowed to perpetuate?” Even the goals that we are each born with get obscured by extreme duality – by imbalance and heartbreaking circumstances, and in my own heart I see the possibility of learning through more positive means.
Doreen Virtue tells us that, “peace leads to even bigger growth spurts.” Orin and Sanaya Roman write, “You do not have to go through pain and struggle to grow.” I consider how children flourish when treated with love and a positive environment. Might this also apply to seasoned spirits? Can we make this training ground more like the loving place we come from, and start by granting awareness?
I have been told that in the future, safeguards will be put in place to prevent the kind suffering that has unfolded here. I think this might be what earth ascension is all about, and I believe that we are getting unprecedented help from above to make it happen.
For now, I will champion positivity, while also embracing duality. I will reach spiritually higher and end the violence in myself. I will cease my reactive anger and judgment.
For now, I will find the greater purpose behind my challenges and look at everyone as fellow students on the path. If life is supposed to be hard for good reason, then everything makes more sense, and I am learning to appreciate this giant opportunity rather than fight against it. Considering all that we go through, I think it’s vital to be very kind to each other and to enjoy what’s possible in this temporal play. Amidst our eternal progress, life can be a gift of human connection, moving beauty and spiritual growth. And so, I remain inspired to stop and smell the precious roses of this our Bootcamp Earth.
Share the Spiritual 
I like your Bootcamp Earth metaphor. Nothing makes any sense unless we are here for a reason. We may not be able to clearly understand that reason, but we seem clearly here to try anyway.
Thank you Kelly. I love the way you say “we seem clearly here to try anyway.” Very well put.
Life IS hard. I agree this is a giant opportunity and am so grateful to see and share your perspective. YOU are a light … SHINE ON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thank you Susan! You inspire me in countless ways – your beauty, courage and love continually inspire me to write. Keep shining your dazzling, brilliant light that teaches us all, that literally radiates to all who are in your presence.
I forgot to share with you Susan, you are the bravest! and it was you I had in mind when I wrote about bravery in this post. I love you!
I see a true kindred Spirit of Awareness in you. We could talk for hours.
Yes our lives can be hard, only if we do not “listen” to the messages that we are given. These messages are doled out to us a little at a time so that we are not over powered by the immensity of the intended lesson.
We “choose” our parents and our life lessons before conception! This is a subject that is argued by both those that do not believe in “eternal” life (coming back after the death of our present “human skin” in a different body to learn the lesson that we did not complete the last time, the time before that or even further back) and those that do.
I think that Bootcamp Earth is just for this “human skins” life lesson. It may seem as though we do something unpleasant or painful or even injurious over and over. This happens until we “let go” of all that we “know” or hold as a judgment. To grow to the point of being “enlightened” each one of us will have to “let go” of EVERYTHING. This may cause each one of us to be disturbed. Distress is caused by our holding on to those things that we “know are the are the way it should be.” “When you begin to become conscious, more aware, when our eyes begin to open, the first thing you see is how deluded you are. How much you are holding onto that makes you suffer. Are you willing to be aware? Are you willing to open your eyes? Are you willing to be wrong? Are you willing to see that you may not be living from a standpoint of truth, from a standpoint of reality?” (1) To be disturbed is not a negative thing. It simply means that you are now willing to see that things may be different than the way you thought they were.
We each have the power to decide whether or not we will continue to journey down the path of hardships, pain, suffering and misery or choose to open our selves to the path of joy, happiness, truth, honesty, love and peace. Each one of us may have physical challenges, career or family challenges or even challenges in accepting ourselves the way we are. To graduate from Bootcamp Earth, become willing to become disturbed.
Footnote 1. Quoted from “falling into Grace” by Adyashanti
I’m really blown away by this. The willingness to let go, the willingness to be wrong, the willingness to be “disturbed.” It reminds me of the idea of dying before you die. I want to embrace transformation on an individual and collective level, but I think fear plays such a huge part in unwillingness. You’ve really pinpointed so perfectly our tremendous attachments and fears. Keep teaching us James.
There are those that think the reason we experience the challenges like Susan is dealing with is because of unfinished business from a past life. I totally disagree!! What happened to our Susan for example has nothing to do with “choice” it has only todo with a random collection of genes that caused her body to function in a unhealthy way. I truly believe that it is what we do with our lives after such an incident that makes us stronger. We have a choice to live and experience the joys of life along with the sometimes painful challenges or to with withdraw and shrink away into the great nothingness. Susan chose to is to live in the greatest way she can and I/i applaud her. She is a shining example of the kind of human we should strive to be.
I think your thought about being guided to choose the harder path has some merit. We may not understand why we chose the path that we have taken, that understanding comes after we have reached completeness! Completeness is a state that some will find easy to reach, some with a little difficulty and the balance of humanity with more difficulty. Once we “sign up” we can always choose to with draw from that “sign up” and live (actually just exist) in whatever state remains for us or we can choose to live on the chosen path. Enduring seems to me to be a little bit negative, I/i would prefer to see it as completing our chosen path in peace, joy, laughter and happiness. When we chose the path that we are on we chose it out of self love! It is important for us each to remember this and to reflect from time to time as to why we chose this path.
This post provides a lot think about. I do agree that we choose our parents and our life path. I also believe that we are here to experience different things, different feelings, different items on the menu. If we only had joy, we would get bored. Pain is only there because we are not aligned with our true selves. We can learn from it, and it is invaluable when we do learn from it. Also, I believe it was Eckart Tolle who said suffering is optional. We experience pain and think it’s terrible. It’s not anything other than “what we say it is.” We are the ones who add meaning to everything that shows up in our lives. Things just are. Peace is. War is. Love is. Fear is. We are meaning-making machines, and when we judge anything to be bad or good, we only define ourselves. When pain shows up in our lives, it is our choice whether we suffer or not. We can actually embrace the pain and surrender to it. When we go through the pain, it dissolves. When we run from it, it chases us… until the moment we turn around, face it, and it no longer has a hold on us.
I think life is beautiful beyond our wildest imagination, and it is in fully accepting all of it that we can thrive, expand and grow spiritually. When we accept conditionally, then we have no power within ourselves to stay centered in the eye of the storm (and we are not even accepting). Being fully at choice on living life is the way to go. Be your absolute best. Give your best. Speak your best. Live in integrity and life transforms. It only happens when we transform. It’s never about what’s happening outside of us. We are the center of our own world, and we take ourselves everywhere we go. If there is something we don’t like, it is a reflection of ourselves that still needs to receive love, light and healing.
I discovered that we can’t just be about healing the whole planet and worrying about all who suffer. If our individual consciousness lives in worry, fear, lack and suffering, then we are part of the problem and not the solution. I do care about those who suffer, but I also know that I have suffered on behalf of others and they were not suffering. It is our perception, our filter from which we view the world, that gives us that so much of our world is suffering. And while that is true, that many many people are suffering, I’d like to be a stand for them to transcend that suffering rather than pity them which places them as victim (and continuously suffering). Imagine for a moment, that the suffering each person experiences is actually part of their gifts to make them come into their highest Being during this experience on earth. And instead of feeling bad for them, they grow, and expand, and embrace life on a whole new level. They embody their greatness. And when they embody their greatness, suffering is optional. Pain will come, but the understanding of it has a new definition: it is that we get to course-correct. Now how cool is that, to have such beautiful and powerful built-in mechanisms to guide us all along the way on our spiritual path?