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Your Next Spiritual Awakening Might Come Through Suffering
4 Unbelievable Stories from Spiritual Teachers Who Were Transformed Through Hardship, Tragedy, and Suffering
I got an email recently from a reader who had just lost her husband. She was thanking me for something I wrote about suffering. It struck me that she chose to write me, just some guy who wrote some article, a really kind letter while she was in the midst of a tragedy.
But what really blew me away was the kind of presence that she had with that suffering. Almost like it had opened her eyes, in a way. There was a wisdom and a kindness and a compassion in her words that felt deep and familiar. I was thinking about it later that night and the thought occurred to me, Isn’t that the way it goes?
I think that is the way it goes. Not always. But sometimes it’s tragedy and suffering and losing everything that opens us up to a different part of ourselves, maybe a deeper part. It would be great if happiness and pleasure and everything going right was what changed us but it doesn’t seem to work that way.
It’s something we all seem to remember when tragedy strikes and forget again once it passes. But some suffering hits us in just the right place that we never forget the lessons it taught. Some suffering…
