YouTube: The Dynamics of Challenge
Audio: The Dynamics of Challenge
Excerpt from:
A Practical Guide to Prosperous Living
It is important to realize that every new enterprise, every decision you make to pursue your passion is going to evoke some level of confrontation between the stronger and the weaker elements of your self-image. You will set your goals based on your strengths, your talents, your interests and your dreams. In the process of manifesting them, however, you will encounter challenges that will summon all your weaknesses as well. Self-doubt, fear of failure, feelings of lack, impatience, anger, lethargy and indifference will all creep in at the most inappropriate times. Like Job, you may find yourself saying, “The thing I feared is upon me and the thing I dreaded is now before me.” Many worthy undertakings have been brought to a grinding halt by these unwelcome thieves of our creative energy.
You need not be taken by surprise when this seemingly negative side of your consciousness arises. While it may not always be comfortable or convenient, the arousal of these stifling elements is both inevitable and necessary. They arise from that limited aspect of your identity which is crying out to be redefined from the basis of your soul.
Because of the discomfort or even pain involved in dealing with them, the temptation is to suppress these unwanted elements. But unless the things you fear most come upon you, unless they are brought into the full light of your awareness, you will never be able to trace them back to their sources and permanently release the negative influence they have on your circumstantial tendencies.
J Douglas Bottorff 
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Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible. The Dalai Lama Sent from my iPad
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My weakness has always been the inability to understand and use higher math, business math, and statistical calculations. It kept me from a career in science, business, and rehabilitation services. All of those negative feelings that you mentioned would beset me, and still do, when I read about the calculations that must be done to work in those fields and to understand that is being done.
Is this what you mean by “that which I feared/dreaded is upon me?” Conquering Plane Geometry and Algebra 1 made me feel great. I was able to remember the derivation of the quadratic equation just long enough to write it out on an exam, and then promptly forgot it, because I couldn’t understand it. Business math tires my brain quickly because it frankly bores me.
Is this what you mean, or is it something else–perhaps that I am simply much better at what I did do, which was working with patients in Physical Therapy?
I’m not suggesting forcing ourselves to do something we’re not good at or do not like. It’s confronting the fear that keeps us from doing what we know we can and should do. I’m sure you can think of many times when you pushed past a fear to get something that was important to you. We’re not good at everything, so some things are best left alone.
I did push past a fear of letting go of a gov’t job to go back to school, and there were a few times when I was afraid I wouldn’t make it through to the college degree that I needed, and then I would have no job
and not much money left. But I asked for help whenever my way seemed blocked, and I succeeded. I truly believed that I would have never been given the suggestion (a still, small voice) without also finding the help I would need to get through all the work and a major life change.
Sorry the attachment was missing, Doug. Here it is. Rev. (Verna) Eileen Douglas …and so it is!