Posted by Andrea Conway Law of Attraction coach for small business success

If you’re reading this on 12/21/12 and it looks like just another ordinary day of contrast on planet Earth, don’t make the same mistake I did in 1987 and decide there’s no spiritual evolution or personal transformation happening.

The truth is spiritual evolution is always happening. But you won’t necessarily see it unless you pay attention to your own personal transformation first.

Some people look for proof of transformation in fire and brimstone or in a lamb sleeping next to a lion or they expect to see ETs landing on the White House lawn or the mists rising and Avalon standing revealed to all.

If you’re looking for transformation out there, it’s hard to find. Instead, look for spiritual evolution through your life experience and resulting personal transformation.

You are the gateway to spiritual evolution!

Right now, in what Abraham-Hicks calls the Time of Awakening, the potential to transform faster and with greater self-awareness is available to us. How do we claim that potential?

First, accept that transformation happens primarily within you. External events may trigger your shift – but they don’t cause it: you do.

I’m reading Neale Donald Walsch’s book The Only Thing That Matters. In the late 1990s, his Conversations with God Books I and II – which I listened to on audiotape over and over driving back and forth between New Mexico and Oregon – forever transformed how I thought of myself in relation to spirit. I no longer saw myself as lowly or separate from spirit for the first time in my life.

The new book offers some equally mind-blowing insights, including the true purpose of these transformational times and a new perspective on challenges. If you were expecting to be able to evolve spiritually without having to fully engage in the work of personal transformation… well… forget about it.

According to Walsch, challenges aren’t thrust upon you by an outside force that wants to hassle you. They’re created through your own desire to remember and express your inner power. That’s why it’s possible to stop allowing challenges to upset us!

Through the Law of Attraction you draw them to you – for your own transformation and for the evolution of the universe.

Second, look for the goodness in all challenges.

Mike Dooley refers to us as Adventurers because we come here to express our spirit-given abilities to create. Most of us love the rush of a new adventure – but sustaining our excitement when the outcome is uncertain is a lot harder.

The reason that we find adventure stories so thrilling is they touch something very real in ourselves that everyday life usually ignores. We forget that the hero/heroine always faces challenge after challenge – and plenty of dark moments.

The higher truth is that challenges are required for personal transformation. However, Neale Donald Walsch reminds us that suffering from our challenges is optional. That is very good news.

Third, remember that you are spirit.

Part of evolving through a challenge is realizing it will trigger any old patterns that you now have the opportunity to release. These old patterns nearly always relate to times that we abandoned our own power or felt it was taken from us. The return to wholeness comes when we reclaim our innate spiritual power. As we send our power returning, it feels like: relief.

As ordinary as today might be for you, it holds a precious opportunity.

Today you could choose to stop the struggle and allow the mind to rest from relentless thinking.

Today you could decide to relax and remember that you are spirit: you are powerful and creative and you are meant to receive what you ask for (without having to struggle or stress to get it).

Today you could declare that you love and appreciate your challenges because they offer you the gift of personal transformation.

Today you could acknowledge that your personal transformation is your gift to spiritual evolution – and you could “get in on the fun of your expansion right now.”

Those are Abraham’s words to remind us that we access our expanded self (and the Vortex) whenever we feel good.

Reprinted from Successful Self Employment (SSE) News subscribe