Ninety percent of the time, the Universe doesn’t give us any more than we can handle. The other ten percent of the time, it offers us the opportunity to allow for grace.

One of the things we’re doing here on this plane is growing and evolving spiritually, so that we can remember who we are and become fully conscious creators of our own Universes. To that end, we offer ourselves lot of opportunities to evolve past the resistance of the ego. We are essentially exercising those growth muscles every time we encounter something we perceive as a challenge.

Much like any time we are learning or relearning a skill, sometimes we need extra help. There is no shame in asking your trainer or your teacher for help in getting to the next level. There is no shame in saying “I don’t know how to get there.” Part of an instructor’s job is to help you learn to do the thing.

If everything was easy, we would never stretch. So even though we are remembering how to do things, we’ve expended a lot of energy forgetting them (see last week’s Message if you don’t know what I’m talking about). This means that 90 percent of the time, the challenges we encounter are not that hard to move through, as long as we don’t get stuck in fear.

Many of us aren’t particularly good at asking for help, though. If we were, I wouldn’t need to write this post. And when we ask for help, we often forget to get out of the way to allow the person/energy trying to help us to do their thing. When we still think we have the answers or can solve the problem, we block that power from operating in your life. It is only when we are out of answers, when we are up against the wall, when there’s no way out, do most of us drop our defenses and let grace in.

If we can stop fighting and say “help me,” the shroud over our view becomes clearer. As we actively, consciously keep staying out of the way and turning it over, that transparency increases, until the full light of grace streams into our lives, illuminating everything.

But we have to get out of the way first.

This post is part of a series called Monday Message, based on that day’s reflection from 365 Days to Enlightenment (authorized versions are currently out of print, working on a new edition). Check back next Monday for another one! You can also sign up for the Daily Message on my mailing list if you’d like to receive a new reflection every day. I also often post them to Instagram, if that’s a medium you enjoy.