In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, many people in the United States found themselves confronted by a full range of profound emotional reactions that few had ever before experienced.

The overwhelming effects of this hurricane’s devastation reached out across a planet and touched the lives of many, either directly or indirectly, and remind us each of our own vulnerability.

There are many “specialists” arriving on the scene to offer us better ways of coping with these unprecedented and life altering events. But there is one specialist that many of us forget to include, and that specialist is our own self.

No matter how great or how small life’s challenges are, they are opportunities to see the light of our own magnificence. It would seem almost counter-intuitive that magnificence would be offered in such devastation and hardship, but adversity is often presented as the path to our truth.

As individuals, we represent a complex package of ideas, values and belief systems. One singular event has the power to move any individual into greater understanding of their self or another. While one person is moved toward one understanding, another may very well be moved into a completely different, yet equally true, understanding for their own personalized growth. That is why we are each specialists, for what insights add to the growth of one person may be completely different, yet still true, for the growth of another.

Over the past couple of years, we have been almost bombarded by what appears to be life’s harsh opportunities for growth. As we struggle to cope with our own daily challenges, we can become even more disturbed by the appearance of individuals who seem to face theirs with something less than insight and wisdom. But that fact in itself presents opportunity, for it gives us a chance to unconditionally love those individuals who did not grow as we may have liked.