Ever feel like you’re in the middle of some version of hell? Maybe you’ve been diagnosed with a disease, maybe your kids are acting out, maybe you have a job that has you feeling stuck and frustrated.
Dr. Rick Hanson knows all about it. He’s a psychologist who writes about resilience and happiness in his weekly newsletter “Just One Thing”. https://www.rickhanson.net/
Hanson offers up one simple practice each week that can bring us more joy in life. This week’s ‘one thing’? “Accept Difficulty”. Somehow, so many of us have this idea that life is supposed to be perfect – the continuous unfolding of our dreams in every way.
It just doesn’t work like that.
Hanson says that we add a lot of unnecessary frustration, anxiety and self-criticism to our lives when we resist what is difficult. We often cling to our opinions that “It shouldn’t be this way!” But it’s that very clinging that is the source of our pain.
No clinging, no pain.
How do we stop? Be open to the thing that hurts. Let the experience just “be”. Step back from it and observe it, witness it, create some space between it and you. Then let it flow through you and on out the door.
Notice that when you stop struggling, you start feeling better.
Now you’re free to honour yourself for the difficult things you’ve been tussling with… and feel gratitude for all the many, many things in your life that are actually good and supportive and wonderful. Accept them, and watch the difficulties start to feel less stressful.
Easy? Maybe not. Worth it? Definitely.
