It sneaks up on you. Unbeknownst to you, awareness is tiptoeing its way to you. You may notice roughness encroaching upon you, yet the roughness you experience is making way for greater awareness. The perceived roughness is edging old ways out.
In the fairy tale, the beast is not a beast at all. Nor is the roughness you may be going through, no matter what it may look like, no matter how it feels -- the roughness you are experiencing is not the roughness you take it for. It is a clearing. We could say a clearing of the throat. We could say it is a cleaning of the trough of ignorance so that higher consciousness can reach through to you.
The roughness you experience is like a cough that is coughing out what clogs you. All perceived stress, illness, what have you, is helping you to move out from the past that clogs you. Of course, I admit, great happiness can do this for you as well, or, perhaps great happiness signals the event or advent of greater awareness once it has already occurred. Certainly, you have great happiness coming.
To be sure, beyond all your stress, lies your good fortune. Oh, to be rid of ignorance! To be rid of the rags of ignorance, you would go through a lot. You may have even said: "I'll go through anything to become enlightened!" You didn't really mean it, or, you didn't think it would be like this, not like this at all. You thought you might take a brave voyage, a hero's journey to slay your dragons. You didn't know you would take day trips so mundane as what you are going through. You didn't think your voyage would be so low as ordinary life having its way with you. You would gladly go through anything worth writing a book about or starring in a movie, but not this, not this common cough!
In any case, you can't quit! You don't have to pursue enlightenment, you understand. How can you chase that which you have not yet really noted? Willy-nilly, enlightenment is catching up to you, often when you are not looking.
You can anticipate enlightenment, yet you can't make it happen. Nor can you prevent it. Enlightenment isn't something you do. Enlightenment is free, beloveds. It is not your call. Your very pursuit of it can slow you down. Why? Seeking enlightenment above all else maintains your focus on yourself, and on yourself is too small an area. Of course, there is no just yourself anyway. The whole cosmos is yourself. The Universe is bigger than an ant hill. The Universe is your consciousness, and your life in the Universe is expanding your awareness of consciousness.
Enlightenment means expansion of. Nowhere do you travel alone.
If you must seek, seek to know love. If you must seek, seek to not specialize in yourself. Throw away the microscope and find a telescope that increases the circumference of your life. True, everything, all, is contained within you, yet you are much more than your isolated self. Big Self embraces.
Consider yourself one who swims through the Universe bringing other fishies with you. You may even drop them off before you enter the Door of Enlightenment. Perhaps you hold the door open for others before yourself. That may be how it is that the last goes first.
Focusing on yourself is not benevolent. It is not brotherhood. It is not loving your neighbor. Focus on yourself is too limiting a focus. There is a greater swath before you.