Sometimes life can feel rough. In those times, it can be useful to remember the saying, “this too shall pass”.

Life tends to unfold in phases. Some phases can feel long and arduous, while others can feel light and happy. Going back and forth between these phases can be challenging. One week, we might feel like everything is going great. The next week, we might feel like life hurts, and nothing is going our way. Ultimately, every single experience we have is part of our greater soul learning process in this Earth school. Seeing your experiences from that vantage point can help bring you consistent inner-peace.

I’ve heard one of my spiritual teachers, John Jones, describe life like a rock tumbler. In this metaphor, each one of us is a rock. When we get into the rock tumbler, we’re young souls. We are rough, sharp, and edgy. We have judgments and fears. As the rock tumbler begins to spin, we start bumping into each other over and over. As we collide with other people, our judgments and fears come up and we experience misunderstandings, miscommunications, and suffering. That said, through this process we begin to learn. The pain becomes our teacher and we can start to release our judgments and fears. Over time, our rough edges become smooth.

Eventually, when we come out of the rock tumbler, we’re no longer the jagged and sharp rocks that we went in as. As a result of our learning and spiritual growth, we’re now smooth, round, and whole. In this state, we’ve learned how to love, accept, and forgive ourselves and others completely, we’ve released all of our fears, we’ve transcended all of our judgments and karma.  We’ve reached a point of consistent inner-peace and unconditional love. We’ve reached a point of spiritual consciousness – of self-sovereignty, equanimity, and enlightenment.

This is the big picture view of what we aim to help clients with in our spiritual counseling process.