Why our hardest lessons are our biggest teachers

She chose to do it with my dad’s support, which left me with my grandparents for four years. It wasn’t an easy decision for her to make and she often tells me that if she could do it over again, she’d do it differently.

However, that’s not the course of life.

In her coming to the United States to forge a new life for our entire family and sacrifice being separated from her child, she paved the way for so many of our other families to come here, make a better life, and be successful. For that, I’m so grateful.

But it wasn’t easy. Life never is.

When you’re a young, Asian, woman, struggling to take your place as a physician in a male-dominated world, you had to work doubly hard and push past fear and resistance. I watched her for many years playing the part of the underdog until she chose to open up her own private practice.

It was my mother’s fearlessness that brought us from the Philippines to Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, and eventually Texas.

Through all this, I watched her work mercilessly hard for 40 years while dedicating her life to serving children and being a good daughter to her own parents. She provided us a good life, home, and options for education.

But there was always this...gap between us. When you’re separated from someone at such a young age, there’s bound to be something that gets missed along the way. That gap felt like I was talking to a stranger at times.

That early gap that existed between my mother and me was is filled by a time with my grandmother, Marianita. She became my mother for four years while my mom was here in the United States.

My grandmother was beautiful, strict, loving, and fiercely protective of her family. She ran her household and delegated tasks and activities like a well-groomed leader. She had a deep love and faith in Mother Mary and forged a bond in me so early that I can’t remember a time when this Being of Light wasn’t in my life.

I had a different relationship with my grandmother than any of her other grandchildren because our purpose was innately tied to passing on the torch of light.

My grandmother and I had a special bond in the sense that I got ‘initiated’ into a special way of being, praying, and connecting to Source and Light at an early age but didn’t know it. Our Higher Avatars had a special purpose of being together because I was supposed to receive that training from her.

Through novenas, prayers, and travel, I tapped into something that I didn’t understand. Most 3-5-year-olds don’t get it. They can barely sit still. I know. I was one of those kids that were always in trouble for misbehaving, talking, and being so fidgety.

What my grandmother connected me to was my Light Avatar’s purpose as an Earth Angel. This would become the work I would do later on in the world.

When I came to the United States at the age of 7, I fully ‘landed’ in my body, and I was no longer in a care-free tropical paradise setting of beauty and ease. I was in Iowa, in the middle of winter and cold.

Life with my parents wasn’t always easy because I was willful, stubborn and considered them strangers. I found peace in books I read as my imagination roamed wild and free. It set the perfect setting for spiritual awakening and exploration in my 20’s.

This exploration eventually led me to the work I’m doing today. I’ve worked with hundreds of clients over the years and let me tell you something friend...we all have something that hurts or is painful inside as a lesson to learn and grow from.

This is the reason why we’re here. We’re here to transmute pain, suffering and be a bridge from our Ancestors to the Future Generation. This is why our hardest lessons are our greatest teachers.

We are the bridge to change.

Before I set foot on this plane, my higher self knew that I would have to experience a major change/catalyst at an early age that would trigger my connection to Spirit and set me on a path as a light-worker and Earth Angel. My higher avatar self knew this change would be a foundation for why I sought healing and understanding.

This is the beautiful circle that gets made when we step back and allow our Light Self to see how events are perfectly orchestrated for us to experience our greatest hardships, lessons, and growth. This is a path of Mastering the Soul. This is a path of forgiveness and allowance. This is a path of grace.

I’m grateful that I still have my mother now. Our relationship is closer now than before and she calls me her “psychiatrist.” I know her Light Avatar has helped her to make a difference in the world through the lives that she’s touched. I hope that my Light Avatar is doing the same for me.

So this post is to remind you to look at the biggest lessons and hardships that you’ve encountered throughout your life and find meaning, grace, and forgiveness. It’s also to remind you to be grateful to your mother and your mother’s mother for their hardships, sacrifices, and choices that have given you the life you have now.