All struggle is within

All struggle is within

Tim Connor

Struggling with anything today? A career, a relationship or just one of life’s many routine issues or challenges? If you’re not I would be surprised as life always has challenges due to our human nature, change that we can’t control or our needs for approval, acceptance or to be in control.

Struggle - to make a great physical effort to achieve or obtain something - to deal with a challenge, problem, or difficulty of some kind.

I have never met anyone in my world travels who has not or is not struggling with something.  Is there value in struggle or is it just our way of trying to overcome something that has come into our life that threatens our safety, health, security or happiness?

I know I have struggled on numerous occasions during my life with any number of challenges – financial, relationship, career and anything else you can think of and I have often wondered why I fought it so much and often for far too long.  Why couldn’t I just let it go and surrender?  Was it pride?  Ego? Self-esteem? Or, some other human flaw that prevented me from learning quickly and moving on?

Struggle is a distraction and steals from the joy and value of your present moments.  It causes stress, worry and anxiety none of which are healthy mindsets.

So I ask you – is there a value or benefit to struggle or is it just our way of coping with some aspects of life?

First - I believe struggle is a signal that something needs to change – something inside you or something outside you in your life that you can’t control.

Think about something you are struggling with now.  What is it trying to teach you?  Why is it in your life now?  What do you need to change, do, learn or decide so you can move past this struggle mindset and on to the joy of life and the many blessings you have?

How can struggle teach us?  For starters whatever is going on has our attention and awareness so the question is – are we willing to look beyond the struggle to its causes or potential lessons?

Second - accept the fact that struggle will continue and often increase if we don’t confront its contributors and just stay locked into the current situation.

Third – Struggle is often indicative of inner resistance to something that needs further or deeper consideration and contemplation and without it you may face similar struggles again in the future.

Fourth – Struggle causes inner pain, conflict and a confrontation between values, goals, attitudes or opinions and how to resolve them given the current situation and when we take action or make decisions in this mental or emotional state we will often make poor choices or bad decisions and take the inappropriate actions that can have even worse future consequences.

I know many people who have struggled, made bad decisions and then had to deal with even worse situations in the future because of these actions.

Decisions we make are not the issue here, what is - are the actions we take and struggle often prods us to – do something to fix this or change this – NOW!

The solution – there are many things you can do while struggling that can help you learn what you need to learn and to take actions that will resolve these in a more practical and mature way.  Here are just five.

Talk with someone you respect and who respects you where you can be totally honest and vulnerable. Ask them for ideas, guidance, and suggestions or even what they would do.

Spend time in prayer, meditation and contemplation and don’t rush this process.  Don’t expect immediate answers.  Learn to wait and observe and trust.

Spend some time in nature – take a slow walk in the woods, on the beach or anywhere where you can focus on what is good in your life.

Listen and pay attention to your inner voice or spirit.  It will guide you, but you have to shut off all of the external noise that contributes to all of your inner noise.

Don’t think that whatever you are facing needs an immediate response or knee-jerk reaction.  Give it some time to play out and just watch as it does as an outside-in observer.

There are many more things you can do but I will leave you with a thought – struggle is in your life for a reason and it wants you to grow and learn because of it – are you ready or is your ego and pride preventing this growth?

“The important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle.”

Pierre de Coubertin