Getting nothing you expected

Have you ever entered into something thinking you would get something out of it, only to be totally surprised by what you receive?

In my late 20’s I decided I wanted to do Kung Fu. I had my reasons for joining, firstly, I grew up in Johannesburg South Africa, and so knowing some self-defense would definitely be beneficial. Plus, it would be good physical exercise.

Nothing could have prepared me for the physical torture and pain that I would go through.  The push ups, sit ups, holding stances for what felt like hours on end and then doing it all over again. I would leave the classes dripping in sweat.  My muscles were so tired that I could barely push in the clutch to change gears in my car.

It felt like torture.  It was so challenging. I was often in pain and most weeks I was covered in bruises.  Some nights I left and cried because I felt as if I was being punished.

I considered quitting, I considered leaving, yet something continued to draw me back into the classes.

Initially I stayed because:

• I wanted to learn to defend myself if I needed to.
• I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it.
• I didn’t want to go back on my own commitments.
• I wanted to prove to the men in the class that a women could do it just as well.

Yet over time I began to notice that I wasn’t staying for any of these reasons.

I began getting something that I never expected.

The physical torture and brutality had not changed.  I was still leaving classes dripping in sweat and struggling to drive my car home afterwards.  The classes did not get easier over time, in fact they became more challenging. The classes had not changed, I had.

Something inside of me had changed.

• I had begun to recognise my own power.
• I had begun to see the games that my mind had played on me for so many years.
• I realised that my mind had kept me small, had allowed me to play the victim in so many areas of my life.
• I saw how any pain or challenge we are faced with can be seen as suffering or as something we can work through.

I discovered that I was a powerful being.

This is only one of many experiences in my life where I have entered into something expecting one thing, and have ended up coming out the other side through difficulty and challenge to find something even more amazing and magical than I could have ever imagined.

I am so grateful for my journey. It hasn’t always been easy, yet on reflection I wouldn’t have it any other way. I feel that I am at a place of deep inner knowing now and it is only through the challenges that I have faced that I have been able to reach this place. In many ways I could never have imagined the life I live now.  Through my experience, I have learned that trusting and allowing myself to be guided has enabled me to find a magical place in my life that I could never have reached otherwise.

Thank you, thank you, thank you