Photo by Ravi Roshan on Unsplash
“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of those depths.” - Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
I had a tender conversation about death, loss, and the impermanence of life with Rudi and Jules Kennard on this week’s Insightful Conversations. Both Rudi and Jules are 3 Principles
practitioners and trainers who have experienced profound loss in their lives. The kind of loss that changes your life forever and creates a shift in your level of consciousness.
For Jules, several tragic incidents led up to her spontaneous shift in consciousness. The first was when she decided to stop fighting her ex-husband for custody of their son. As hard as this decision was for her, Jules knew it was in her son’s best interest to let him go and live with his father and his new family. The second devastating event was the tragic loss of her teenage daughter, who died in a fatal car crash at the age of eighteen. Both experiences changed Jules at a fundamental level. Instead of sinking into despair, something profound shifted in her, and she was able to move forward in her life with love and compassion. These days Jules helps others who are dealing with grief and loss.
For Rudi, his spontaneous shift in consciousness occurred back in 1992, when in his words, he had a “mind-blowing experience” while traveling abroad. He went from being a twenty-year-old who didn’t believe in anything spiritual to seeing that the atoms that make up everything in the world of form are comprised of love and compassion. This awakening was the start of a journey that would eventually lead Rudi to the Principles. Several years later, during the very public breakup of his marriage to his first wife Jenny, Rudi would once again experience a massive shift in his level of consciousness. While he was at his lowest point, he asked God why this was happening to him. God’s response to Rudi was to tell him that he had asked for this. Perplexed, Rudi asked, how? God’s answer to Rudi was that he had asked to evolve, and this was how he would do it.
My heart breaks for Jules and all the other mothers out there who have lost a child. I thank God that I had never had to go through this, even though there were times during my son’s depression when I thought I might. But like Rudi, I have been through a divorce which, for me, felt like a death. The tearing apart of my family was one of the most painful periods of my life. Having grown up in a chaotic and dysfunctional environment, giving my sons a stable upbringing was paramount to me.
It’s sad but true that the majority of us experience our spiritual growth through a “dark night of the soul.” The times in our life when the pain is so overwhelming, the ego cracks open and allows for the shift to happen. As agonizing as it was to end my marriage and start afresh as a single mother, there were tremendous gifts along the way. I often say that I would never have met the person I am today if I’d stayed in my marriage. As much as I wouldn’t choose to go through it again, I am grateful for it all.
It was through my suffering that I stumbled across the Principles. Through the depths of my despair, I was able to witness my strength and resilience. Through the hardship of financial loss, I found the strength to pick myself up and embark on a new career as a 3 Principles practitioner. Through my lived experience, I am now able to help others who are trying to find The Way Out of Codependency and Narcissistic Abuse.
As much as the Principles teach us that we experience life via the feeling of our thinking, the world of form can still be challenging and unpredictable. Traumatic events such as death and divorce can leave us feeling battered and bruised, but they cannot destroy us. They may take us down for a while, but we are resilient, and with time we will bounce back to our natural state of innate well-being.
At times like these, we can take comfort in knowing that everything that happens to us, even the things we resist and wouldn’t wish on our worst enemies, is all in service to our highest good, spiritual growth, and evolution.
With love and appreciation, Del 💕