Is it possible that the bad things that come into our lives can actually good things in disguise?
Embarking on a journey of transformation, positive change, emotional healing and all that jazz introduces us to all sorts of perspectives and beliefs we may not have considered previously; or we were aware of these ideas but dismissed them as being stupid, silly, hippy dippy, naive or trite and never really gave it any serious thought.
These ways of thinking can seem quite foreign. As great as they sound, we usually won’t go all in wholeheartedly right out the gate. There is just too much momentum going in the other direction; there is too much ‘evidence’ to the contrary.
In many ways us humans are gluttons for punishment, and we seem to want to make personal growth and transformation as difficult as possible. Maybe that is the only way we feel like we deserve to reap the rewards of it? But I digress…
And here lies the biggest challenge for the growth-oriented–truly embracing ideas that would make our lives so much better in every way imaginable but that the mind doesn’t like one little bit so fights every step of the way. These shifts in thinking are a huge threat, and it pulls out all the stops to keep you where you are.
It wants to keep you believing ideas that make our lives so much worse in every way imaginable. Trying to figure out why it is so screwed up is futile my friends. You just need to understand it is, but know you aren’t powerless against it, and go from there.
And of all the ideas that can aid us in being happier and emotionally healthier, that ‘bad’ things can actually be ‘good’ things is probably the one with which it has the biggest problem. And that it is such a big problem for the mind will become a big problem for us if we don’t make a real effort to buy in.
Why?
Because using challenges–as the mind tends to interpret them– to grow, and make positive change, is pretty much the core of personal growth work. If we refuse to see ‘bad’ situations this way, we stunt our growth and stay stuck. If you have decided you want to be one of those people that devotes time and energy to betterment, not getting on board with this idea will frustrate your intentions at every turn.
Because the energetic feedback we get from ‘bad’ experiences we don’t like is invaluable in helping us make the energetic shifts that lend themselves to manifesting all our precious ‘stuff’ from money to relationships to better career opportunities to physical healing and beyond.
So for all you conscious creators out there, it is crucial you make friends with this perspective or you will miss a lot of opportunities for energetic transformation–remember, if the inside is creating the outside, the latter can’t really change if the former doesn’t.
Because it is usually impossible to see right away how a particular experience fits into the larger picture, and is playing a role in getting you where you need to be, even if it seems ‘bad’ or something went ‘wrong’. If we don’t keep this idea in mind we won’t benefit from the type of energy it creates. We will get in the way of the process in countless ways, like wallowing over missed opportunities, therefore blocking new ones.
Just Because the Mind Doesn’t Like It…
Doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing!! Given our humanness, and how the mind works– its various fears and distorted ways of thinking– the negative reactions we have to many of the experiences we tend to have in life are very understandable.
But don’t let your mind trick you into thinking these initial negative reactions mean this manifestation is categorically, indisputably a ‘bad’ thing. Just because your mind doesn’t like how it feels, just because things didn’t go the way it wanted, or expected them to, doesn’t mean anything went ‘wrong’ or it ‘shouldn’t’ have happened.
You got fired from your job. But you really didn’t like it anyway. You never would have had the balls to voluntarily quit and you probably would have stayed there forever, bound by a fear of change and not having money. But it is the very thing that leads you to pursue something you really want. So was it a ‘bad’ thing?
You had an illness that got progressively worse and forced you to take time off work and give up your various commitments. Your life was extremely stressful and chaotic; you were miserable. This forced hiatus finally got you to focus on your health in a real way. It created such strong internal strife you had no choice but to feel your feelings. While extremely challenging on all fronts, it all led to immense physical and emotional healing. So was getting sick a ‘bad’ thing?
These examples are probably the kind of thing you have heard countless times–the ‘bad’ thing being the blessing in disguise. People talking about how going to prison or getting cancer was the best thing that ever happened to them.
This is a perfect example of the type of wisdom that is so simple, so ‘obvious’ we kind of dismiss it. It becomes cliched and doesn’t get the attention it deserves.
We say we already ‘know’ that and never stop to check if we actually truly believe these things on a deeper level, if these beliefs are actually influencing us in any way. We usually don’t and they usually aren’t. We learn these things but aren’t actually applying these perspectives in any real way in times when we could really use and benefit from them.
One some level, we KNOW this perspective is true. But when we are in our own heads, when the shit is hitting the fan in our own lives, all this can go out the window and we get sucked into all the crap the mind is spewing.
And the worst part of this is not only is the mind rejecting these sorts of ideas, it is digging in its heels even further on the painful perspectives, making all sorts of arguments for why you should think and feel this way. It uses the momentum of negative energy you have amassed to its advantage and it wins.
It’s okay to feel the bad feelings the manifestation triggers–that is part of the process, probably the most important part. But just be on the lookout for when you are moving into the territory of clinging to, and fighting for, these negative feelings and the perspectives that gave birth to them. As long as you are honestly assessing what’s happening inside, you will be able to make this distinction.
A Part of Manifesting We Don’t See Coming
Believe you are a powerful creator. Set an intention to manifest X, Y and Z. Do some affirmations, spend a little time visualizing. Then just sit back and wait for things to show up. Essentially that is the manifesting process.
But like any theory, real-world conditions aren’t accounted for, and things tend to play out very differently in actual life. Which means we may have to do a bit more ‘work.’ Sucks but just is what it is…the sooner we accept this truth the easier it all gets, even the ‘messier’ parts of the process we really don’t like. I promise you that.
The theory of manifesting doesn’t take into account the degree of dysfunction of our mind and the problems that creates on an energetic level. There’s the intense fear about pretty much everything, attachment, self-sabotage, thinking it knows best what you want, being driven by the desire to take away pain and not cultivate positivity, and a very strong unwillingness to trust in the process, be open to how things unfold and engage with our inner world to name a few of the biggies.
‘Bad’ things the mind doesn’t like will often play a major role in the manifesting process in that these experiences allow us to make the inner transformations necessary to align with the various desires we have. We may not be aware there are certain energetic ‘saboteurs’ until something manifests that triggers them. And that is a ‘good’ thing because we can’t change something if we’re not aware of it.
If you want a boyfriend, a more successful business or the weight loss so badly, don’t you want to ‘fix’ anything that might be getting in the way of allowing them in? I would think so.
We may keep resisting going within, and dealing with various fears and emotional pain until something happens that triggers them so strongly we basically have no choice but to face them.
The pain is so great that ignoring it, trying to distract ourselves from it, trying to push it down is just not an option anymore. It is too intense, too in our face. The floodgates have opened and there is no putting it all back where it was–it has come to the surface and we are acutely aware of it.
Learning all we have learned we know we don’t have to suffer with all this, and we are highly motivated to finally do something about it. We know we have no other choice if we want things to get better. So for many of us, these situations have us actually applying this knowledge in a real sincere way for maybe the first time ever.
Money is a great example of this. You lose your job and start going through your savings, this pile of money you never wanted to touch, that always made you feel ‘secure’ even though you actually didn’t feel that way at all ever. Having to spend this money, there is a real possibility you will literally run out of it, and you’re terrified.
And this terror motivates you–for the first time in your life–to make a real effort to embrace the various perspectives you learned about the law of attraction, your energy, and how they apply to money specifically.
This experience leads to a dramatic transformation in your energy around your finances, and you manifest an opportunity that has you making more money than you ever had; it completely transforms your relationship with it.
So was it bad you lost your job and had to drain your savings account? The journey may have felt really badly at times, but it allowed you to engage with energies that were seriously getting in the way of manifesting the reality you so wanted. It played a direct role in getting you where you had been trying so hard to get to.
Any manifestation that gives us the opportunity to go within and purge all the emotional ‘ick’ weighing us down, that keeps us from being our best selves, keeps us from acting in our own best interest, keeps us stuck in resentment, fear, anger, bitterness, sadness, anxiety, depression, can never really be ‘bad.’
This doesn’t mean you have to be happy it happened. Many people find the loss of a loved one, for example ,was a major catalyst for positive change. But I imagine most wouldn’t declare they are glad their parent, spouse or child died.
This sounds obvious, but it is this sort of simplistic black-and-white thinking the mind trots out, and we fall prey to, but don’t even realize. And in falling prey to these arguments, again, we don’t actually try to embrace these perspectives in a real way; they have virtually no influence over our thinking, feelings, decisions, actions, habits and behaviors.
The Role of Choice
The role of choice in personal growth and energetic transformation can’t be emphasized enough. You come into the game with certain ideas, beliefs and perspectives that are probably not serving you very well at this juncture of your life in particular.
You learn new things that feel a lot better, that give you hope, that make you believe in possibilities you never entertained for yourself, that would allow you to heal emotionally, that would allow you to transform your poor self-image and love yourself more.
If you really, truly bought into all these beliefs and ideas, your life would improve in so many ways. You would transform in so many amazing ways. You would be able to handle the myriad challenges of life with more grace and ease. Sounds nice right?
So what’s it gonna be? What do you choose to believe?
Do you cling to the shit? As painful as it is, it is certainly easier because you don’t have to try and change. You don’t have to engage in any uncomfortable questioning. No worries about taking responsibility for your life or feelings. All of that is the fault of the government, your culture, your parents, your ex-husband, your boss, your neighbors, your co-workers and your kids.
Your mind will eagerly rustle up a catalog of experiences to prove these ideas ‘true’ and you will have no problem keeping on believing these things about reality, how the world works,etc… You will certainly have plenty of people with which to commiserate so you’ll never feel alone in looking at things in this way.
You’re unhappy but you’re used to it, you’re used to all the things you don’t like in your life, you’re used to your pain. So you maintain the status quo, believing this is just life and how it is.
The thing is though…once you start learning all these ‘alternate’ ways of looking at the world, you won’t ever really forget them, you can’t unlearn them. You have been stretched a bit and you can’t shrink back totally to the type of person who never pondered such things, who never had any intention of going down this sort of path. You can’t go back to living largely unconsciously.
So you will experience a greater level of pain and inner tension than if you didn’t know any of these things, than if you never set the intention to grow.
Technically you can decide to remain in this space and ‘give up’ but really try not to. It doesn’t have to be this way and a part of you now knows this. Trust that part to guide you no matter how tough it may seem at times, no matter how much your mind wants to pull you away.
Then there is the choice to embrace these ideas ,that in your heart, that intuitively, seem right. Do you trust these feelings are a valid means of evaluating truth, in that things that feel good are true and things that feel crappy therefore must not be true?
This is really where it all starts. This is all we really have to go on especially in the beginning, especially when really challenging times are dragging us back into old ways of thinking.
Do you choose to make an effort to believe these things in a genuine way even though you may not have much proof in your own life?
Do you choose to believe our ability to have faith in the unseen and unproven is not some coping mechanism to deal with a shitty, random, chaotic, meaningless world, and is in fact something with which we were deliberately ‘given’ as a way to tap into this invisible realm of spirit, of creation?
I talk about the role of choice in this work a lot and one thing I always stress is these choices are not one and done deals. You need to make them continuously, and even the most ‘advanced’ among us will find this to be the case most likely.
This is because there are lot of experiences in this life that can test even the ‘best’ of us like a diagnosis with a serious illness or the death of someone you love. As long as you remained committed to choosing in favor of the beliefs and perspectives that will serve you, that will make you feel better, that will make it easier to deal with the countless experiences the mind will judge as ‘bad’ you’re golden.
You’ll still feel whatever feelings the situation brings up and it’s fine. It’s not about executing this all ‘perfectly.’ The feeling of these feelings is a key to more wholeheartedly embracing these ideas because the energy of these emotions creates a sort of static or interference that makes it harder to do so. This ‘purge’ makes it easier to genuinely move in the other direction, it breaks up the momentum.
Just be gentle with yourself, be compassionate. Prioritize your self-care during challenging times. Acknowledge your humanness but just don’t ‘fight’ for it. Don’t use it as an excuse to remain stuck in ways of thinking and being that won’t serve you. These transformations will feel messy, hard and uncomfortable much of the time. Don’t let your mind convince you that is a valid reason to not bother–it thinks it is but it isn’t.
Once you really start to see the value of these experiences, how they benefit all your ‘goals’ you will feel much less resistant to them. Dare I say you may even look forward to diving in, and seeing where it will all take you, how it will make things even better.
Your Turn
What did you think of the post? Anything resonate in particular? Do you have a story about a ‘bad’ experience that ended up being a ‘good’ thing? Looking forward to your comments as always.
Links of Interest

Hi Kelli!
I think so many of us want to be able to go through the manifesting process without the “ick”, but there is so much of that journey that takes us exactly where we want to be in the first place! I so appreciate when you say we’re not going to be “perfect” at it, and it’s ok to sit in with our feelings in the moment – as long as we don’t dwell and stay there! Thanks as always for your incredible wisdom!
Hi Letty
Thanks so much for your comment and great insight. You are right…that all plays a role in getting all the ‘good’ stuff so it’s not so bad. Might not feel great in the moment but when we remember this, it makes it so much easier to deal with! And yes..perfection not required. We would all be in trouble
HI Kelli Thank you again for a brilliant blog! It is finally starting to sink in!! There is no such thing as ‘good’ and ‘bad’! Comparing with events of the past is a pain in the arse! Just embrace it and stop comparing and holding my ‘wants’ as that just creates a barrier, that the mind loves!
Hi Pam
Thank you so much for your comment and I am so glad you found the post helpful. The more we move away from our mind’s judgements and just be open to how things unfold and how things fit in, we more easily enter into that flow of the process.
Hi Kelli, I think I commented on a previous post of yours about this but this blog seems particularly relevant to my circumstances so I’ll comment again 🙂 I had a cancer diagnosis earlier this year, which I could have easily seen as a ‘bad’ thing. However, from the beginning I always suspected this was the ‘how’ of the universe providing some of the ‘things’ that I wanted. I’ve got a family history of breast cancer you see and one of the things I ‘wanted is a long and healthy life. Last year I made the decision I wasn’t going to be afraid of it anymore or fight it – I was going to let the universe decide how I would get what I wanted. So, this year when I was diagnosed I felt peaceful… this is how it’s supposed to unfold. My diagnosis was relatively early and it hadn’t spread. I had a fertility preservation treatment (I’m 34) which I wouldn’t have had if it wasn’t for cancer; I would like kids in the future. I had an insurance payout which has allowed me to buy my own house, a lot sooner thanks to cancer. I also get access to Future preventative surgery more quickly thanks to my diagnosis. And cancer has brought more love into my life… including romantic love. There’re no guarantees I will live until 100, stay healthy and get everything I ‘want’ in life, but you’re so right that ‘bad’ things can be blessings in disguise. When ‘bad’ things happen, if we stop resisting the flow of life we might start to appreciate the blessings. Thanks for your great post x
HI Joanne
Sorry for the delayed response. Yes it happens to all of us sometimes I think and a situation like this can be hard to ignore for even the most staunchest supporters of ignoring the news! I am aware of what is happening there and I am sure it is especially hard for countries and areas that thought it was under control and behind them. Seeing the sacrifices that need to be made–to think they will keep having to happen is hard to deal with.
Hi Jo
Sorry for the delayed response. Thank you so much for sharing your experience. What you wrote is so beautiful and demonstrates a very good understanding of this idea of the ‘bad’ thing actually being a great vehicle for getting us where we want to be. Health is a really good example since we may not feel motivated enough to make the changes unless they are being pretty much forced on us by way of a something actually physically manifesting that we now cannot ignore–technically we can but probably wouldn’t want to. Again, so beautiful and insightful…I have no doubt this experience will continue to help you bring more positive things in your life and make inner transformations that may not have been possible without it. Much love to you
Hello!
Great information and ideas.
Almost all of my bad experiences have made me a better, stronger and more capable individual. As for law of attraction the most working way of using law of attraction are affirmations for me. I just keep on saying “I am rich, I am healthy, I am happy” and when i say these a lot i start getting changes in life in that direction. I believe that saying affirmation “I am healthy” really causes positive changes to the health.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts again!