Trial of Honor

Everything you have brought in to your life has been brought there by fear, if it hasn’t been brought there by love.

That is the essence of what I heard a yoga teacher (the exact person I cannot recall) say some months ago, and it rang true.

Just as a pebble tossed into a pond forms an expanding ring, I listened to the resonant wake created by this ring of truth and saw it gently spread.

From my understanding of spiritual law, another way of saying the first half of that teaching is: What we fear, we bring to ourselves.

Beyond the reach of the resonance came another instructive pebble in the form of a question: Why would a sane person self-inflict with this destructive force of fear?

We bring these fear-laden experiences to ourselves in order to test ourselves.

That is right. We have had this discussion before, several times in fact, my spirit guide reminded me, about how Native Americans had created ways, contests and vision quests, to test themselves.

From their physical to their psychological and ultimately, spiritual strength, these tests had fear as part of the challenge. To overcome, to transcend the fear, was by facing it, and by so doing, another trial of honor was realized and one’s soul force expanded.

The wise ones had taught the younger: It is through these tests that a person develops true power. A power that is beyond any strength, talent or advantage a person may be born with. It is a power that comes, not as a reward, but rather as the living expression of one’s true nature.

As the rings of truth continued merging, and the outermost edges drew close to each other, I could hear my spirit guide’s question: What is one’s true nature?

With that the final vision took shape. Concentric waves of truth fully overlaid, ring upon ring upon ring, forming my answer with two names: Fearlessness a.k.a. Love.

— Giselle M. Massi © January 2006