Igniting Your Spark

For the past few weeks on my YouTube channel, we've been diving deeper into some of the lessons within my first book, Hey Radiant Souls A Guide to Finding and Shining Your Light. The chapter titled The Odds May Be Stacked Against You really seems to resonate with a lot of people, so I wanted to share a bit here on my blog as well.

We all have periods of time that challenge us and none of us ever feel like we sail through life. Some people have it harder than others, perhaps, but everybody has it a little bit tough. That's what we're here to do. We have times where it feels like we just can't catch a break. It's part of the human experience, part of the hero's journey that we're all here for. I like to picture this like the scene in the movie Star Wars where the heroes find themselves in a trash compactor with the walls pushing in toward them. Life sometimes is that. We get compressed. It's not comfortable. We can't see a way out.

What do we do with that when we face those struggles for ourselves? And it doesn't have to be the big, overwhelming thing like a court case or a car accident. Sometimes it's the feeling of, "If I have this argument one more time with my husband, I don't know what I'm going to do" or "Why can't I get this thing to happen at work in the way I want it to?" It's those things. We all have it. So what do we do with it? How does it help us be better people? What purpose does it serve? In the book, my Guides shared the following message related to this topic:

Hey radiant soul, life isn't always easy.

It is messy, tangled and tricky.

You can't learn how powerful you are if you never talk to the monsters under your bed.

The flat and straight path offers no resistance and the muscle of your courage atrophies with disuse.

When adversity finds you -- and it will --  know that it is your time to shine.

The odds may be stacked against you, but they are there to ignite your spark.

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I love the imagery of a spark being ignited. To me, it feels like we can see adversity - our "odds" - as kindling for the fire. The more you add, the bigger and brighter the flame becomes. The challenges we face are fueling our flame. We shine more brightly as a result of what we walk through.

I reconnected with my Guides for an updated, expanded message. Enjoy what they shared:

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Hello, bright and beautiful beings.
This is a spicy topic, as you may say. It's a bit difficult for many of you to hear about odds and obstacles and things that don't go well, because on your spiritual path, many of you are perhaps under the assumption that once you reach a certain frequency, once you tune in to the frequency of something like love and gratitude and peace and bliss and joy that that then washes away or prevents anything negative from ever happening, and we would say that is not so.

We challenge you to consider the things that are less preferred in your life, as just as beautiful and joyful as those things that you do prefer. Because both are needed to help you grow and develop. And if you think of the image, many of you may understand of pulling taffy. These are the forces that pull and shape your growth, and without the things that challenge you, without the things that require you to feel a little bit depleted, feel a little bit challenged, feel a little bit unnerved, or perhaps a lot of each of those things.

You may just stay the same and not change and not grow. So we would say the challenges, the odds being stacked against you, those are some of your best and most beautiful teachers. What if you considered the word odds as Opportunity Denied Don't Stop. That's how we would say it. It is something that can incite you, something that can inspire you.

We also know that many of you think of inspiration as, oh, that's the good thing. That's the thing that I'm really excited about. Inspiration can come from those darker corners as well. Inspiration can come from your need to solve something for yourself, to rise above something for yourself. And we just would bring through the image for your of a phoenix, of growing back your wings and ascending out of that which has challenged you.

You can soar higher and you can fly farther because of the challenges that you face. So when it feels like the odds are stacked against you, do not lose faith. Allow that to enable you to dig deeper within yourself and rise to the challenge and enjoy how capable you truly are. Thank you for sharing this time with us.

Be blessed, dear friends.

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Many of us classify inspiration as only those things which are uplifting - light, airy and ethereal. The things that feel like angels descending from the clouds with hands full of glitter and sparkle. In reality, it's often the dense, lower and slower things that help us grow or push our buttons so that we find solutions (if only so we don't find ourselves back there again).

The next time you feel that the odds are stacked against you, see them as powerful amplifiers. The more effort required to surmount those obstacles, the brighter, bolder and larger your Life can become.