Constraints as the Mechanism for Growth

A man I admire once said something to the effect of: physical incarnation is like holding a pea between two fingers and squeezing down on it to force the pea core out of the skin. It can’t go up, it can’t go down, but it’s gotta go somewhere- so the pea just shoots out in some wild direction.

Being physical imposes all sorts of perceived constraints upon us, per the rule-set of this physical reality. We experience the physical constraints of having to live, think, and function with a body of flesh. We experience social constraints as we are affected by the choices and actions of those around us. We experience resource constraints as we strive to support our wants and needs. We experience time constraints. And we experience communication constraints, as we are limited to crude words and bodily movement in our communication with one another.

Yet all of these constraints are meant to allow us to experience a truer and much more fundamental set of constraints: our inner constraints. The feelings and thoughts that arise in response to our physical constraints cause us to enter into a complex jungle of seemingly forced self discovery. The world seems to take our money- we feel powerless. The world seems to thwart our relationships- we feel lonely. The world seems to bring disease to our body- we feel pain. We typically perceive all these conditions as negative. And yet, hidden in them is the very meaning and power of the physical experience- for they allow us the opportunity to actually better ourselves.

In Amy Call’s NDE she recounts that a wise being who had mastered humility was gathered among many spirits who would benefit from learning it. He said to her (without words) something to the effect of, “All I can do is plant a seed of interest for them to learn it for themselves. Without a physical body they cannot grow in that way. They need the contrast of the physical experience to learn it.”

Let us take a fresh look then at the contrasts in our lives! Every pain, every challenge, every quandary holds a bountiful treasure- if we are willing to truly, fearless venture inward to discover what it is about ourselves that the experience challenges. Seek out your negative self-perceptions, and meet them. Seek out your pains, and feel them. Seek out your demons, and hug them. Seek out your fears, and sit with them fully. For such is the reason you have come to this place of apparent limitations.