When we fight against what is happening in our lives, we dis-empower ourselves. We keep ourselves in suffering by focusing on what we have no control over. We even cast ourselves into the role of the victim in our own lives. Then, because we have lots of support from others about how bad things are, we tend to get stuck there. We talk about it and stay mad about it and put all of our energy and focus onto what is totally out of our control and has already occurred.
When we wish things were different than they are in this moment, all we do is upset ourselves. The wishing and focusing on what we don’t want or didn’t choose does nothing to change the situation.
As we all know, by nature, life is not easy. But also, no one here is in control. We all have our own individual journey and lessons that are meant for us to learn along the way. EVERYONE does. And we can’t control any of that, but we can control how we respond to our challenges.
When those ever-surprising challenges pop up, if all we do is complain and focus on how hard it is and wonder “why me?”, we are doing nothing to learn the lesson, nor are we really LIVING our life. We are just surviving our life and we are fighting against what is already occurring as if we could make it different with our wishing and complaining.
There is story about a man watching a butterfly struggling to crawl out of its cocoon. He watched and waited and was afraid the butterfly was making no progress, so he cut the cocoon to help the butterfly get out. It did easily emerge, however, it had a swollen body, small shriveled wings, and was never able to fly. The struggle the butterfly goes through to get out of the cocoon helps to push fluid out of the body into the wings and to strengthen the wings for flight. That struggle has a very specific purpose and without that challenge to endure, the butterfly is unable to ever develop and fly.
If you are going through a challenge in your life right now, be in it. See what you can learn. Breathe. Know that it won’t last forever. And try to think of it more as strength training for whatever life may throw at you next. Our struggles shape us and develop us to be able to fly more easily through the next challenge.
Ok, so you may not have chosen for things to go the way they are going and it may seem like this struggle will never end, but nothing lasts forever. Good or bad. Every moment spent wishing that things were different than they are is a moment that you will never get back. Do you want to look back on your life years from now and see that it was made up of complaining, moping, and wishing it were different? I doubt it.
Try to welcome the struggle. Embrace it as part of the adventure. And know that you have everything that you need inside of you to get through it. You have survived everything in your life up to this point. And you [probably] have more wisdom now than you did in the past and you will have more wisdom in the future than you do now. You can make it through this as well.
Flex those muscles, push through, and open yourself to growing your character and your strength. It will serve you well. Focus on what you CAN do rather than what you can’t. We often allow what we can’t do get in the way of what we can. Maybe it will take longer than expected or maybe we can only make baby steps, but it’s the moving forward that matters.
And of course, I will be strength training right along with you.
Chat again soon,
k