After years of prolonged financial problems, I had to accept that I could no longer ignore the repetition of these problems in my life. The crises in my life eventually served as catalysts to understand that I needed to make different choices to engage higher perspectives. In reading self-help and personal growth books, I began to understand that, when there is a recurring problem, such as the financial hardship we experienced, the underlying messages want to be revealed. They will make a continuous, unyielding effort to get our attention. The opportunity that lies within crisis is for you to be willing to look closely and identify the underlying patterns and messages in what is happening around you.
In the prolonged crisis, reading the books I read and listening to inspirational talks encouraged me to be still and quiet in order to allow the deeper messages to make themselves known. It was from this humble beginning that I actively began to participate in what would become my saving grace: going within to seek clarity through meditation and prayer.
Throughout the turmoil, it wasn’t easy. With continual highs and lows, I began to tire of listening to myself whine and complain. Although I was scared and I wanted answers, I didn’t want to continue to discuss our situation with family and friends. With no money to pay for therapy or counseling, it seemed the only place left for me to go was within. So I did.
During my meditations, in addition to periods of silence after prayer, I began to ask questions to solicit clarity and guidance into my awareness. As I posed questions during a meditative state, I began to notice answers would indeed come into my awareness. However, as soon as the meditation session was over, I forgot the guidance which came into my awareness. The only way to remember would be to write it down. It was at that time that I decided to bring a large pad and pen to my meditation and prayer sessions. At the start of the meditation, I would first pray, then move into a period of sustained silence. After getting comfortable for several minutes of complete silence, I was more relaxed, and thoughts that continued to hover would begin to fade. With my eyes closed, I would then say the following:
“I call upon my Higher Self to join me in my meditation. During this meditation, I ask that you protect me from any and all vibrations, energies, frequencies and communications in all directions of time past, present, and future, that are not of love, light, and the highest good. Please let this communication be clear. Let the answers be communicated to me in a way that is easy for me to understand. Please let me feel your loving energy when you are ready to begin. I thank you in advance for your presence.”
For more than a year, I sat down in a meditative state to ask questions to help me mentally and emotionally navigate the difficult and uncertain times I faced. The guidance I recorded helped me to move through difficult and unsettling times with comforting reassurance that I am deeply loved, there is no need to be afraid, and I am not alone. The guidance I received, however, did not provide the answers I wanted. My posed questions and concerns were continual attempts to address the immediate unfavorable conditions which surrounded me. The guidance, however, provided the larger context of what was happening in my life and the higher messages that sought to make themselves known. In the beginning, when I felt anxiety surrounding the outcome of a situation, I utilized my spiritual practice for a “save me please” answer. I wanted someone, something, anything to tell me what to do, to whom I should speak and what I should say. For a long period of time, I wanted to be rescued. I didn’t want to do the “heavy lifting” of looking at what was underneath.
In the beginning, when I began to ask for guidance, those times were no different. I didn’t want anything vague. I wanted the final answer in the form of a deeply fulfilling (and immediate) job. However, that’s not how this works. That’s not how any of this works.
What is important to understand is that, for years, fear dominated my responses, choices, reactions, conversation, and movement throughout my life. I was consistently afraid that some event would occur that we would not be able to financially handle. Eventually it did. For a prolonged period of time, we could not afford to live anywhere. We could not pay our bills. It was an unyielding struggle which took a toll on every aspect of our life. Before establishing a consistent meditation practice, I constantly felt threatened by a looming financial disaster. My nerves “lived” in fight-or-flight mode from the endless anxiety I created.
In the midst of this silent struggle, I turned within to be able to make it through each day. I knew I could either continue to do things as I always have, or take a chance of trusting my intuition and absorbing what the moment was trying to teach me. Life is not always linear, pretty, and clear. Sometimes you have to step outside of the box, especially when you’re being pulled out of the box. With this in mind, I continued to meditate. Meditation grew to become the most practical, accessible, and effective way I found to calm myself of the anxiety-ridden thoughts that propelled me.
Let’s be clear, meditation did not immediately remove any situation from my life. That’s not what it does. Although mediation can be a powerful tool for personal growth, it is not a quick fix. What it did was help me establish, and strengthen, my practice as a way to move through the conundrum of situational difficulties with greater ease and trust, and a sense of growing empowerment. There were deeply held unconscious beliefs that were unknowingly contributing to the problems in my life; meditation helped to bring these unconscious beliefs to the surface to be consciously addressed and released.
Bridgitte Jackson Buckley, The Gift of Crisis
You are not alone: Since the start of the recession, 8.8 million jobs have been lost, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bridgitte Jackson-Buckley was one of those 8.8 million people who lost their jobs. Between 2007 and 2014, she was also one of 7.3 million homeowners who lost their homes to foreclosure. Some affected by job loss and foreclosure, due to the economic downturn, were able to bounce back relatively emotionally unscathed. Many, however, internalized the outer events as a negative reflection of their personal capacities without taking a deeper look at the crisis as a potential underlying catalyst. In The Gift of Crisis, Bridgitte shows you how to explore crisis as a tool for courageous change, regaining your self-esteem with self-love and self-compassion. Regain control with assertiveness: Although a personal economic crisis can be viewed as an externally-influenced event that is somehow both beyond your control and within your control, it can also be an opportunity to examine the conscious and sub-conscious conditions that brought the experience into your life. It was through experiences of prolonged financial crisis that Bridgitte realized she subconsciously co-created experiences that felt so bad until the only place she could go was within―exactly where she needed to go. In The Gift of Crisis, you will discover how helpful going within and retaking control can be for you, too. Find space for spiritual growth: The Gift of Crisis will show how repeated crises can serve as a catalyst to reveal the underlying purpose, and how questions posed during a meditative state can reveal answers in the direction of a higher purpose. For women and men who are sincerely interested in spiritual growth, yet find it difficult to make “mental room” to dedicate to such growth due to personal distractions, this inspirational book will demonstrate the practical manner in which meditation and prayer can assist during any type of crisis as a means of reaching for a calmer, clearer, more courageous and purposeful life. The Gift of Crisis interposes personal stories and prescriptive ideas amidst ongoing financial destitution to raise your self-esteem, self-compassion and self-love. In reading this book, you will learn how to:
Deepen your trust in a Higher Intelligence and in your higher purpose
Welcome change and embrace change with courage
Focus your attention on the emergence of new possibilities as a result of the crisis
If you liked Brené Brown’s inspirational book The Gifts of Imperfection, you’ll love The Gift of Crisis.