I know many people who believe and will argue, quite firmly, that they do NOT choose adversity. They are victims of circumstance, and they shake their heads and sigh at me, "You don't understand."

It's true that it can be difficult to truly understand how it feels when someone else goes through a "bad" experience that you have not experienced. For example, I know someone who has lost a spouse to cancer. I know others who have battled cancer and won. I am grateful that I have not had these experiences for myself thus far. Indeed, one person's "bad" experience is a pretty good day for someone else. It's all relative.

Still, some people seem to have it worse than others. And many people feel they are struggling every day, whether it's to make ends meet, keep the family together, or even just to keep themselves together. But really, whether you're having a bad hair day or about to lose your house, adversity in all its forms is about our choices.

Every day we get up and choose how we will deal with our day, how we will react to situations that we encounter. You can choose happiness, or you can choose to feel inconvenienced by every other car on the road, or you can choose to feel threatened by a co-worker, or you can choose to believe that you're a terrible person who doesn't deserve anything good in life. All of these thoughts, both conscious and unconscious, guide us to make choices that reflect these beliefs. If you really believe Monday is going to be awful, it will live up to that belief. You will literally make it so.

Ok, you say, maybe in some cases. But there are some things that are so awful that no one would choose them, like serious illness or death. Those must be exceptions. Right?

Not exactly.

In a way, adversity is what drives spiritual evolution. That is, when we come into our body, we choose some things that we need to work on in our lifetime, and we create challenges that are designed to help us learn what we need to learn. I'll call these Divine Lessons, because ultimately they come from God.

For some people, a Divine Lesson may involve dealing with extreme wealth and power, such as a member of a royal family. For others, it may involve a disability or an illness, which creates a learning experience for themselves and their entire family. Neither of these is "bad"—that's a judgement of our ego. The point of all Divine Lessons is to bring us closer to our God-selves, to help us grow spiritually, and that is never inherently "bad."

Of course, we do have control over how we handle perceived adversity. Our reaction to adversity can help us to learn the lesson with grace and ease, or with extreme difficulty—kicking and screaming, as it were.

This year, I've had some adversity, which I can see now that I did choose. Last spring, I became very ill with pneumonia right at the time that we were closing on, and moving to, a new home. I was eventually hospitalized in the cardiac ward due to complications from the illness; my heart was beating arythmically. I knew I could have died, but I did not.

On the soul level, I chose to stay, to live. That is sometimes a choice. But I had made this choice before my illness, which is why I became ill. Sound crazy? I had chosen to stay during these times of change and do what I was called to do. In order for that to happen, I had to heal—we are all being called to heal now, and I was no exception. There was some old energy stuck in my heart chakra, and the pneumonia with the heart complications was how it was released. My illness was a tremendous Healing Response!

So, now that it's over, do I regret my illness? No way! I learned a lot about abundance and fear, as I've written in recent articles, and I'm really grateful for the chance to release all of that negative energy. I'm grateful to be here and live the wonderful life that I have.

As another example, a local 76-year-old woman was lost in the wilderness this past August for 13 days before she was found. It was a terrible experience that nearly killed her. So why would she choose it? Sometimes prayers are answered in interesting ways. According to an article in The Oregonian, she had had a problem with fear all of her life, fear of the world outside, fear of little things. It was enough of an issue that it interfered with her ability to enjoy life. Her daughters often wished that she could heal from that. And she did—her 13 days in the wilderness, facing ALL of her fears and surviving them, healed that. Funny thing, healing.

Adversity can send you into despair, or you can learn from it, take the gift, and move on. For some, this may be a long process. That's ok. It may take several weeks or several decades to see the gift in some events, or this insight may not come until we return home to God. But the gift is still there, somewhere. The lesson that it brings is still important.

For some, the lesson may be to get sick of adversity—to reach the point where they've literally had enough, and then to realize that they deserve better. That they can have better. Isn't that true of us all?