Many of the world’s most successful people, from Tony Robbins to Oprah to Andre Agassi, have experienced significant trauma. The correlation begs the question: could this trauma have been the driving force behind their drive and accomplishments, even if not fully healed? Pain, suffering, and traumas might be the emotional ingredients to reclaim our power, truth, and inner peace.

Our bodies and minds are constantly affected by the energies around us, both positive and negative, which become attachments. The Buddha considered these forlorn attachments the root of all suffering. Sometimes, these energies become overwhelming, leading to depression, anxiety, addiction, and other problems. However, our progress towards consciousness may depend on these sacred low points where we, like all the great teachers and sages before us, can awaken to pure consciousness and finally see beyond the surface-level reality of our lives.

In these moments of suffering, we discover that the “reality” we have perceived to be “real” is a projection of our conditioning and the often untrue beliefs and limitations inherited from the world that raised us. This awakening can be abrupt because it shatters so much of what we thought to be authentic for most of our lives. To move through the experience successfully, we must use compassion to help us overcome the deeply ingrained “negative” or unconscious forces that have held us back.

In waking up and conquering the journey to our consciousness, we are working towards one of the most significant accomplishments we can achieve in this life. The journey requires our presence and a will to fight for truth every day to overcome the deeply lodged “pain-body” energies within us. As we wake up, we may feel lost and ungrounded, distancing ourselves from tricky people and focusing on our needs. While the process can feel challenging, it’s important to remember that the people who genuinely deserve space in our lives are genuine, reciprocal, kind, and aware.

It’s also essential to protect ourselves from the negative energies of unconscious people, especially those in positions of power. These people, in particular, can significantly impact the state of consciousness in our world by promulgating their negative energies and neuroses, which can frustrate our collective pursuit of consciousness. However, we may find that even these “trouble makers” can be our best teachers, helping us to sharpen our awareness and compassion. Our lives are a constant battle between positive and negative energies, consciousness, and unconsciousness.

Our lives constantly battle positive and negative energies, consciousness, and unconsciousness. The choices we make each day have a ripple effect on the universe around us. We can achieve our most significant potential and find eternal peace by fighting for consciousness and overcoming the opposing forces that hold us back.

But right down there at our lowest moments, when the negative energies seem to circle, we have a precious chance to be smacked awake to consciousness.

Our experiences through these “problematic” emotions may give us a sacred opening to see beyond the veneer of the Matrix since we were born. Our afflictions or “disorders” such as anxiety or depression or addiction or whatever negative state we might sometimes feel are working for us; they are pretty helpfully sending us increasingly loud signals for us to stop and find presence to finally listen to what “they” have to say (a concept explored in depth by historically valuable “roles” that get stuck, as elucidated in Richard Schwartz’ Internal Family Systems evidence-based model of psychotherapy).

These emotions often provide us the coordinates we need to consciously observe our lives and determine which elements are out of alignment with our true selves. In retrospect, it may become apparent that we had been sacrificing some part of ourselves too often. We see that the little bug bites which used to be reasonably tolerable become too much; suddenly, we think, it seems that more or less everything in our lives is or will surely soon becomes a problem, a pain, and sap on our resources. This does not usually feel like a fun experience, but it’s beneficial contrast therapy to help point us in the direction we need to go.

We then earn the opportunity to wake up, to look at ourselves in the mirror, and to decide to fight off the pain-body energies, the ones physically stuck in the body and mind, every day for as long as it takes. This experience may give us precisely what we need to awaken. We will find that our capacities for compassion are the missing ingredient we must add to release and overcome these opposing forces, which sit atop shaky foundations.

We always have a flicker of consciousness and truth that we can fan into a powerful force for good, but we must decide to make this happen ourselves. No one can do this for us. Stepping into this challenge with incremental efforts toward truth, self-actualization, and consciousness is worthy because our positive or negative energies can help tilt the balance across the universe.

This path traveled or circumvented by the legions of humans before us is the ultimate hero’s journey to the side of consciousness, returning home to our truth and power and delivering us eternal peace.

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