The Spiral of Life: Why We Keep Coming Back to the Same Lessons Over and Over

“The path isn’t a straight line; it’s a spiral. You continually come back to things you thought you understood and see deeper truths.” ~ Barry H. Gillespie

An evolving soul will often come back time and again to certain themes or lessons. The experience of having to revisit certain types of things is one that can be quite frustrating for anyone who is committed to their self-awareness process.

Because we often subconsciously see our awakening journey as a race to the finish line type of path, we may feel as though we don’t have to re-visit soul lessons that we think we have already pushed past. To come back to something we think we have already been through is seen as a setback in the eyes of our goal-oriented ego.

Why is it that we find it in our hearts to forgive ourselves or others, only to find ourselves in a very similar situation months later, inciting the same anger we thought we had already healed?

Understanding the relationship between consciousness and ego

In order to understand this aspect of our spiritual process we must first understand the dynamics of an un-integrated ego and the awakening consciousness (our soul) that is beginning to rise within us. As our consciousness grows it begins to intermingle with the ‘intact’ ego and this is how confusion ensues.

Our ego knows that the light of our growing awareness means it’s ultimate demise, so it begins to grasp anything to stay alive. One of these desperate attempts to stay relevant, is the grasping on to spiritual ‘concepts’ and turning them into fear based belief systems that we can judge ourselves by.

The concept of achieving ‘perfection’ or of being completely ‘healed’ is one particular favorite of many spiritual seeker’s ego. Since the ego thrives in duality and judgment, the idea that we aren’t quite perfect, healed, enlightened enough or integrated enough is a belief that gives our ego a project to work on, thus giving it life.

“Once I become more present, become more self-disciplined, meditate more, eat healthier, heal all my unhealed emotions, start doing positive affirmation more, then I’ll be perfect and healed and then I will never have to go through any of the things in my life that make me feel scared, vulnerable, less than, or out of control ever again,” the innocent ego thinks to itself.

Settle into the Nothingness

“Every soul innately yearns for stillness, for a space, a garden where we can till, sow, reap, and rest and by doing so come to a deeper place of self and our place in the universe. Silence is not an absence but a presence, not an emptiness but a repletion, a filling up.” ~ Anne Leclair

The enemy of the ego is unconditional acceptance. Acceptance (neutrality/non-judgment) resides in our inner silence and stillness (the nothingness) and this is where the ego fights and fights to stay away from at all costs.

Whatever situation you find yourself in time and time again, that frustrates you or gives you a reason to judge yourself and your life as “less than perfect”, is the indication that you are not giving yourself permission to be exactly as you are.

Maybe the situation is a long-held resentment towards a particular person that you can’t quite seem to lay to rest in your mind, or a self-defeating habit that keeps resurfacing over and over, whatever it is, just simply tell yourself, “It’s ok….” “It’s ok that I don’t know how to forgive so and so. It’s ok that I don’t know how to stop eating sugar. It’s ok that I don’t know how to stop judging myself for naturally arising feelings.”

Notice how once we let ourselves be ok to be however we naturally are, or to feel however we naturally do, our energy completely shifts into relaxation. The things we have spent the most time judging ourselves, ultimately become the weapons used by our ego in order to get it’s validation as ‘less than’ and force us into the energy of judgment.

These are the circumstances we find ourselves coming back to time and again, just to give us yet another opportunity to embrace authentic acceptance, which ultimately transcends the judgment and moves us out of the timeline in which similar situations need to manifest.

Healing will never take place from a standpoint of bullying ourselves into change, or shaming ourselves into doing something different.

This is how the cycles of adversity come back time and again. We can’t possibly imagine how (insert perceived problem here) is arriving in our reality to help us, so judgment of it as ‘wrong’ is our natural perspective. And that’s ok! The honest truth is where the acceptance is needed first. “It’s ok that I don’t know how to see … as a gift.”

The answer to unconditional acceptance, is nothing. What can our ego mind say to complete neutrality and acceptance of it’s every nuance? This is how we become more and more comfortable in our inner silence.

Complete Acceptance Ultimately Leads to More Fulfilling Possibilities

As we begin to accept with pure awareness without judgment (which translates as love) our perceived less than qualities, frustrating life circumstances, or unworthy perspectives, they coincidentally don’t seem to come into our lives any longer.

We begin to operate purely from our soul’s wisdom which naturally leads us into more fulfilling possibilities. The freedom to be exactly as we are and to feel about something exactly as we do is the catalyst of our ego to surrender into integration. When we love ourselves, we no longer require to make choices that align with an inferior or insecure ego structure.

Image Source
Hands weaving reality
spiral

Original Story: Here