Test After Test
Have you ever noticed that right before your life shifts, everything and everyone suddenly starts testing you? Your patience. Your boundaries. Your growth. Your faith. It feels unfair in the moment, but later you realize it was never meant to break you. It was meant to reveal who you have become.
It feels like it is test after test after test. Everyone and everything is testing my patience, and as much as I want to react, especially with this retrograde, I know better than to do that. I know that the shift happening right now is aligning me for the next chapter and season of my life that I have been preparing for all this time.
My Healing Journey Is a Lifestyle
I do not think people truly understand when I say that my healing journey is not just healing the wounds of my past, but a journey of self discovery, breaking generational cycles, protecting myself, and truly living a life pleasing to the Most High. I live and breathe this. It is a lifestyle, not just posting positivity and love and light.
Anyone can repost a quote or a Bible verse and claim to be about that life when they very much are not. Being spiritually aware of myself means I also have to be aware of you too. I know there are many people still asleep in this life and many people who lack self awareness. I do not put my way of life onto others in any way, shape, or form. You live your life in the manner you see best for yourself.
I always say you can only control one thing in this life, and that is you. You control how you behave. You control what you say. You control how you react. You control you. There will always be reactions, better known as consequences, to your actions whether they are “good” or “bad.”
As I have mentioned before, the God that I serve does not play when it comes to me. So I do my absolute best to control me. I control how I respond to things even when things are done to me. I control my anger. I control my pain. I control my thoughts because where my mind goes, energy flows, and I want nothing but peace and softness in my life.
Guarding My Mind and Energy
I do my best not to intentionally harm or do wrong to another because I know that the consequence of my actions can hit me over the head literally moments later. So I try to stay clear of intentionally doing wrong to others. The unintentional happens, that is a part of life and being human.
My spiritual gifts are in tune, and I do not even like negative thoughts about another person lingering in my mind. I cast those away like I am rebuking a demon. Those types of thoughts are not mine, and I do not claim them. So why would I allow them to live and take up space in my mind, body, and spirit if that is not who I am?
I know who I am, and I have to pick and choose the thoughts, ideas, and concepts that enter my mind like I am picking out my clothes for the day. People do not realize that they have the power to rewire their brains and thoughts at any given moment. But we are creatures of habit, and once we have thought a certain way for twenty or thirty years, choosing to rebuild those neural pathways and redirect our thoughts takes conscious effort and time.
It is easy to do the wrong things and just say, “That is how I am. That is how I think. That is how I act. I cannot and will not change.” It is because you do not really want to. Changing means actually doing the hard things and the shadow work it takes to be a better person for yourself and the people around you. That takes accountability, and many people lack that right there, accountability for their actions and how they treat other people.
You Cannot Force People to Heal
As much as I want to go off and tell people about themselves and how they have wronged me or treated me in ways I did not appreciate, I have to realize that not everyone is actively choosing to heal. So many times we try to change people when we cannot even change ourselves. That is one of the biggest mistakes we can make, and it only sets us up for disappointment.
We cannot change anyone. They have to want to change for themselves and by themselves. You cannot force someone to see your perspective or your pain. Someone who acts selfishly and without regard for you in the first place is not going to understand, no matter how much you try to explain it.
Sometimes it is important to love people where they are, knowing that you do not need an apology to heal or move on. You do not need anything from that person to recognize that this is who they are, and it is not your job to fix them or make them see your pain.
Feeling Hurt and Unseen
When I wrote most of this blog, I was feeling raw emotions. I was hurt. I was angry. I was upset. I felt unheard. I felt like what I was experiencing was being overlooked or not understood at all. I had myself in a mood, in a funk, with walls up and a closed off mindset that made navigating through the day so much harder.
It is really hard being such an empathetic person but receiving no empathy back. That hurts. I go out of my way to try to understand the people around me, but when it comes to someone being selfless enough to try to understand me, I do not always get that in return. But such is life.
You cannot expect people to have the same energy, awareness, compassion, or even care about others the way you do. No one owes us anything.
Choosing Peace Over Victimhood
It took a few days to process what was happening to me, step out of the victim mindset, set my anger aside, and choose peace in my life. I know who I am. I know that the God I serve will always avenge me. Nothing meant for me will miss me. The money will come back to me, and it will come back doubled.
The complaining, manipulation, and selfishness that consumes some people is not for me to fix or change. Their karma and judgment have nothing to do with me. I can only control myself, how I react, and how I carry myself in difficult situations.
I might cry. I might be upset. I might shut down. But I will always rise above and choose peace within myself.
Lessons Disguised as Tests
I do not understand why I keep getting lesson after lesson, but I recently saw a video of Erykah Badu talking about how you pray for greatness or patience, and then you receive lessons to test whether you are ready for it. That is exactly what this week felt like. A test to see if I have truly changed. A test to see if I can rise above the chaos and remain steadfast on my path regardless of what is going on around me.
I have to keep reminding myself that I am a spiritual being having a human experience. My level of awareness is not the same as everyone around me. Not everyone is meant to walk this journey with me, and they are definitely not taking me off my path of greatness.
Turning Pain Into Power
Sometimes we do not deserve the things that happen to us, but it is how we take those experiences and use them as tools to level up. Nothing placed in our path is meant to break us. It is meant to teach us and elevate us to the next level.
I promise you there will be a future blog about how this exact lesson prepared me for what is to come.
Closing Mantra
I used to think constant challenges meant I was doing something wrong. Now I understand they come because I am doing something right. When you pray for growth, peace, patience, and purpose, life will hand you situations that demand exactly those things from you.
Diary of a Self- Lover 
Leave a comment