Question: I realize that we have to go through various experiences to grow and learn a particular lesson and then move on, but what happens if we do not know what the lesson was supposed to be?

Answer: It doesn’t matter if we consciously know what the lesson is or not. Subconsciously we do, and so does our Higher Mind. When you have a challenging experience, you do the best you can with it. (Hopefully you’ve also been able to stay in alignment with your principles.)

Most of the time, you’ll have the same lesson appear over and over again, in different aspects. It’s to “help” you explore different ways to deal with it, and/or to give you an opportunity to master it. In the mastery of it, you may get to experience all sorts of different sides of the issue.

For instance, a person might have a lot of critical people in his/her life. The challenge would be to deal with the criticism in a way that would emotionally support him/herself. But s/he might not know that. All s/he knows is that people are always picking at him/her.

Once s/he begins to stand up for him/herself, the critical people begin to either fade away or change their attitudes. One of his/her issues would be to realize that the critics are simply echoing what is already going on in his/her mind.

In AA, they say that if a partner of an alcoholic doesn’t heal what attracted the alcoholic in the first place, that the partner will continue to attract alcoholics, even if they leave the original one.

If you’re wondering what the lesson could be, assess how you felt during it. Think about other challenges in your life. Is there anything similar about the feelings, or the thoughts you had during it that you’ve had before? With life lessons, there will always be some sort of pattern. The situations may be different, but the feelings will likely be the same.

Copyright 2002, 2011 Linda Ann Stewart
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