Awareness brings clarity. When we rest in awareness—truly rest there, not just visit briefly—we begin to see more clearly. And here’s the beautiful truth about this kind of seeing: we cannot unsee what we have witnessed in that light. Once awareness illuminates something for us, that insight becomes part of our inner landscape forever.

Think for a moment about something you’re resisting right now. Perhaps it’s a decision about your job—whether to stay in a role that feels comfortable but unfulfilling, or to leap toward something unknown. Maybe it’s about your relationship, where you’re wrestling with questions of compatibility, commitment, or whether it’s time to move on. It could be about relocating to a new city, changing careers entirely, going back to school, having a difficult conversation you’ve been avoiding, or making a significant financial decision. Whatever it is, notice how that resistance feels in your body right now.

The Temporary Nature of Our Struggles

When we’re navigating these big life decisions, there’s often uncertainty that bubbles up from our past. Sometimes it’s fear—fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of making the wrong choice, fear of disappointing others, or fear of losing what we already have. Other times it’s old beliefs about ourselves that whisper limiting stories: “I’m not capable,” “I don’t deserve this,” “People like me don’t get to have that.” It might be shame we’re carrying from previous mistakes, grief from losses we haven’t fully processed, or anxiety about repeating painful patterns we’ve experienced before.

Here’s what happens with these feelings and thoughts: we perceive them to be permanent fixtures in our landscape. We believe this discomfort, this uncertainty, this stuck feeling is a space we’ll inhabit forever. We think, “This is just how it is. This is who I am.” And from that perspective, we struggle against ourselves, against our experience, against life itself.

But what we don’t realize—what awareness can help us see—is that all of these things that seem to hold us back are actually temporary. They’re passing weather patterns, not the climate of our lives. That discomfort you feel when uncertainty arises? Temporary. That tightness in your chest when you contemplate change? Temporary. The sleepless nights, the circular thinking, the heavy feeling in your stomach—all temporary.

The Gift Hidden in Discomfort

Sitting in discomfort and moving from one challenging moment to the next might seem like we’re just enduring an endless series of difficulties. But something profound is happening in this process, whether we recognize it or not: we’re learning more about ourselves. We’re discovering our capacity, our resilience, our values. We’re gaining wisdom from the very awareness we’re cultivating.

Each time we meet discomfort with awareness rather than resistance, we’re adding to an inner reservoir of knowledge about who we are and what we’re capable of. We’re learning what truly matters to us, what we can tolerate, what we need to change, and what we have the strength to transform.

Your Future Self as Your Guide

If you’re facing the need to revisit a past trauma—whether to heal, to understand, or to move forward—it can seem incredibly scary. The thought of going back to something that brought so much pain, so much uncertainty, can feel overwhelming. You might believe you’ll never get out from under it, that opening that door will consume you entirely.

But here’s something that can help you navigate these difficult territories: the knowledge that your future self—the self that is alive and present right now, reading these words—was able to get through it. You made it. You navigated through that trauma, through that dark time, through that impossible situation, and you came out on the other end. You’re here. That’s proof of your capacity.

With this knowing, there’s a space where we can visit the past and find clarity precisely because we’ve already survived it. You got through it before; you can get through revisiting it. The difference now is that you’re not the same person who first experienced that pain. You’re someone who has already proven they can survive it, integrate it, and continue living.

The Mountain Metaphor

It’s almost like climbing a mountain. When you haven’t hiked a particular mountain before, you don’t know what to expect. The trail ahead seems uncertain, perhaps intimidating. You can’t see around the bends, you don’t know where the steep sections are, you’re not sure how your body will respond to the altitude. You don’t even know with certainty that you’re going to make it to the top.

But once you reach the summit—once you move through the trauma, once you make the difficult decision, once you face what you’ve been avoiding—you can look back and see what you’ve accomplished. You can see the whole path you’ve traveled, the switchbacks you navigated, the places where you rested, the moments when you almost turned back but kept going.

And here’s the powerful part: if you had to climb that mountain again, it might still be physically demanding. Your legs might still burn, your lungs might still work hard, you might still need to pace yourself. But now you have something invaluable—you have the best guide possible to get you up that mountain. That guide is yourself, your experience, your proven capability.

The Invitation of Awareness

This is the gift of resting in awareness. It allows us to see clearly—to recognize the temporary nature of our discomfort, to acknowledge our own resilience, to draw wisdom from our experiences, and to move forward with greater confidence in our capacity to handle whatever comes.

Awareness doesn’t make the mountain disappear. It doesn’t erase our past or eliminate future challenges. But it does illuminate the path, remind us of our strength, and help us see that we’re far more capable than we often give ourselves credit for.

What becomes possible when we truly see this? What opens up when we recognize that we’ve already survived everything life has brought us so far, and that this awareness itself is a form of power we can draw upon?

The clarity is already there, waiting. We need only rest in awareness long enough to see it.