INSPIRING LIFE SCHOOL PODCAST
EPISODE 24
WHY IT’S OKAY TO STRUGGLE
INSPIRING LIFE SCHOOL PODCAST
EPISODE 24
TRANSCRIPT: WHY IT’S OKAY TO STRUGGLE
WELCOME TO THIS EPISODE WHICH IS ALL ABOUT WHY IT’S OKAY TO STRUGGLE
I wanted to have a conversation today specifically about what you can do when you are faced with a struggle and how you can reframe the event to be viewed in a more positive light.
So let’s start with a definition of struggle.
When we speak about struggle, we often associate it with the phrase “life is hard”.
We may be struggling with work or with our kids or with money.
Struggle is defined as “to experience difficulty” or “make a great effort to do something” and for the most part we think of struggle as something we want to avoid.
Today I would love to offer you an alternative way of looking at struggle.
Rather than being something that we actively seek to avoid I’d like to encourage you to: first consider that some struggle…or experiencing difficulty and making a great effort to do something…is a natural part of life for everyone in this world, our children included, and secondly that struggle in various forms is required to help us to grow.
I’m going to start with a story which I am sure you are familiar with but it is worth sharing again.
This is the tale of a butterfly that was never able to live its life as a normal butterfly.
So one day, a man found the cocoon of a butterfly.
He loved butterflies and was intrigued by the process of it transforming from an ugly caterpillar into a beautiful butterfly.
He saw the cocoon had a tiny opening and decided to sit and observe the butterfly as it came out of its cocoon.
He watched it struggle very hard to break the shell for several hours.
The butterfly was desperately trying to force its body through that tiny hole and it didn’t appear to be making much progress.
After a while it seemed the butterfly had given up.
It seemed as if it had gotten as far as it could and had no energy to go any further.
Then man decided then to help the butterfly so he found a pair of scissors and gently snipped off some of the opening so that it was wide enough for the butterfly to emerge without any further struggle.
The butterfly came out easily but it did not look so beautiful.
Instead it had a swollen body with small, withered wings.
The man was happy that the butterfly was finally free of its cocoon and continued to watch it, eager to see it fly with its beautiful wings.
He waited, thinking that at any moment the butterfly’s wings would expand and the body would shrink but neither of these things happened.
To the contrary, the butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around with the same swollen body and shriveled wings. It was never able to fly.
Though the man had good intentions and acted with kindness he did not understand that the butterfly actually required the struggle it was experiencing to emerge with strong, beautiful wings.
The struggle to get through the tiny opening was nature’s way of preparing the butterfly for flight.
This continuous effort was what forced the fluid stored into the body into the butterfly’s wings, allowing the body to become lighter and smaller, and the wings to grow large and strong.
Only when it achieved freedom from its cocoon on its own merits would the butterfly be ready for flight.
And that was the moral of the story: sometimes struggles are exactly what we need in life. Struggles are what make us stronger and give us the strength to fly.
So you are probably wondering: well how does this story relate back to me?
Well I encourage you to think about some of your own struggles in life.
Have you had any struggles in life so far and if so, what would you say are your top five.
Now ask yourself: how did these struggles and experiences change you?
Did they have a positive or negative impact on your life or did they in some way make you a better person?
Did someone betray you and from that experience you learned the importance of trust?
Did a terrible mind-numbingly boring job help steer you down a path leading you to work you enjoyed more?
Did a toxic relationship help you appreciate all your healthy relationships later down the track?
Did being bullied teach you about compassion?
Did your negative experiences teach you the importance of resilience and personal inner strength?
I know you may be quick to jump and remember all the terrible things that came from that experience but there is a flipside to that coin.
There’s a diamond in every rough, a hidden gem in every experience, you just need to go looking for it.
I want you to know that if you feel like your life hasn’t been a bed of roses, better things are always coming.
Maybe you grew up in a dysfunctional or abusive family; or maybe you have faced challenges, trials and jumped over hurdles that most people will never have to experience in their lifetime.
Maybe you have lived through struggles, setbacks, pain, loss and heartbreaks that have threatened your sense of security and self-esteem.
No matter what your circumstances, I want you to know that you are not alone.
Experiencing struggles is human nature but you can go either one or two ways from here on:
Firstly you can choose to let your experiences define you.
You can play the victim.
You can revisit your bad experiences in your head every day and use them as an excuse as to why you are stuck in an awful place and cannot go ahead.
Or you can use your battles, even if you never felt like you were the victor, as a source of power to fuel your determination.
You can embrace your survival instinct, authentic vulnerabilities and raw pain to lift (or maybe even catapult) you to greatness.
How is this possible, you ask?
When life is sometimes a struggle…or more specifically we DEEM life to be more of a struggle because of the thoughts we have about a situation.
Well the truth is this.
Struggles are required in order to survive in life, because in order to stand up, you have to know what falling down feels like.
As Elizabeth Kubler Ross once said “the most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have their way out of those depths.”
Have you ever considered that the struggle you are experiencing today is developing the strength you need for tomorrow?
Have you ever considered the fact that what you are going through today is EXACTLY what you need to help you grow into the person you need to become to help you succeed in the future?
So when struggles come your way, don’t be ashamed of it.
Don’t try to hide it.
Don’t think you have to pretend to be perfect.
It is more important to be real.
In all honesty everyone is struggling in some way most of the time; some people are just better at hiding it than others.
Remember from struggle comes success.
Struggles give you compassion and empathy towards others.
Experiencing hardship prepares you to face obstacles that often bring other people down because they have only lived a life where everything went their way.
Pope Paul VI said “all life demands struggle. Those who have everything given to them become lazy, selfish and insensitive to the real values of life.”
Struggles are an opportunity to be brave; a chance to learn patience, resilience, courage, be humble and gain an appreciation for the little things in life.
If you have a goal (or two or three) don’t let this feeling of having experienced multiple struggles get in the way of your personal success.
Own it – own the fact that you survived it all and appreciate the gifts that your life has given you so far.
You are just as worthy as everyone else in this planet to live a full and beautiful way.
Even if you feel less than perfect, that doesn’t make you any less worthy.
As humans we are all perfectly imperfect so learn to embrace this fragile side of yourself.
Allow people to be inspired by how your fortitude, genuineness and ability to deal with everything that is thrown your way (or willingness to admit it and be honest when things are all too hard).
I want you not to worry so much about what happened in the past – look at where you are now and where you want to go from here.
If you have a lot of baggage to carry along the way, that’s okay too.
Remember it’s fine to share the load if you have to.
Ask for help when you need it.
There is always – ALWAYS – someone willing to share a listening ear or give a helping hand when you need it.
All you need to do is ask.
Keep in mind: the harder the struggle, the more glorious the triumph.
As they say, obstacles are put in our way to see if what we want is truly worth fighting for.
And it usually always is, I promise you, so don’t give up.
Now let’s quickly talk about children and struggles
This story made me wonder how many of us truly allow our children to experience their own struggles.
How many of us act as if we are our kid’s knight in shining armor, stepping in to save them at first cry?
Do we honestly let them feel the full weight and pain of their hardships, or do we immediately step in to remove as much of the burden as we can?
We think we are helping them out by saving them but are we really?
There are obviously times when you really do need to step in and help but, more often than not, the best thing you can do to help your children grow is step back.
Allow your kids to learn and make their own mistakes, without feeling as if they need an adult to solve every problem they are faced with.
It’s a human experience to experience both positive and negative emotion in life and the same is true for your kids so please don’t rob them from the opportunity to experience both.
They need both the positive and negative experiences to grow in life.
So if they are nervous about speaking up then by all means GIVE THEM ENCOURAGEMENT FROM THE SIDELINES.
Teach them the skills and inspire them to put them to good use.
You can even practice these skills together until they feel more comfortable doing it on their own.
Whatever the case, allow your children the opportunity to become more independent so they can discover their own skills of negotiation, resilience, compassion and fortitude, instead of just seeing how great yours are.
To hear that struggles only make you stronger is – well I’m guessing that’s reassuring for anyone to hear, especially when you are inevitably faced with more than your fair share of them.
But whether we are able-bodied or not, have a disability or diagnosis that differentiates us from others, we all have our own set of roadblocks, hurdles and challenges to face, day after day. It helps to know that we are not alone in this respect.
Nonetheless something great does come out of this struggle and its success.
We need struggles to learn and grow.
Without it, there is no real progress or opportunity to develop the strength you need for tomorrow.
Now I know we all want our children’s lives to be as happy, pleasant and pain-free as possible (who would turn down a blissfully perfect life…I know I wouldn’t!) but that is an unrealistic expectation.
Life will present every single kid with challenges, whether you like it or not.
And guess what; you won’t always be there to save them.
Doesn’t it make more sense to teach our kids to save themselves?
Isn’t it kinder as a parent to help our children discover all the gifts they have inside their hearts and minds?
To teach them how to get back on their feet ON THEIR OWN rather than always been there to save them before they fall?
Whether we like it or not, our children are much like that butterfly in their cocoon.
Without struggle they won’t have the opportunity to discover their own gifts, they will lie trapped and buried inside unless they are forced to do it on their own..
If you want your child to develop strength and resilience, sometimes the right thing to do is step back.
So please feel free to stay in their corner if you need there and support them from afar but have faith that all will be well in the end because struggles = strength and you need to survive these challenges on your own to earn your beautiful gift called wings.
Remember it’s okay if you or your kids struggle at times.
It’s okay because that is how we grow and evolve to become resilient individuals in this world.
When we reframe these struggles and view them as a gift to be appreciated our whole aspect on life changes because we can take both the good and bad in life and run with it.
Some things to keep in mind when you are going through a struggle:
Everything can and will change.
You have overcome challenges before.
It’s a learning experience.
There is always something to be thankful for.
Something good comes out of every negative experience that you experience in life.
And we only get better at getting back up when we have fallen down when we have the courage to face these hurdles head on, when we jump over one and then the next and the next, instead of retreating back into our cocoon, staying stuck in the same place and refusing to move forward.
This is where it is helpful to remind yourself that you are right where you need to be at this moment in life.
Sometimes that spot will be pretty and sometimes it will be a bit less attractive and that’s okay because life is made up of all different seasons and we need to stay strong and ride the waves because on the other side we will come out stronger if we stay strong inside.
Remember life is made up of 50% good stuff and 50% less pleasant stuff no matter who you are or what you do in this world.
Some of us think if we had another job or were married to another person or we had another family that everything would be easier, that we could tip the scales and make them work more in our favour so that life was 80% great and 20% less great.
But it doesn’t always work that way because the 50/50 rule is a pretty consistent guide to what we will experience in life, even if you had a different job, partner, kids or family the same rule would still apply.
Once we accept that this is a pretty consistent truth we can get better at saying: “oh so this is 50% part that is a little more testing, okay I can cope with that.
Nothing terrible has happened.
My world isn’t falling apart and I don’t need to freak out.”
Instead these struggles are here to help me grow so thank you for appearing in my life and let me show you exactly how I can manage you well so I feel stronger rather than weaker because you are here today.
Please note that sometimes people choose thoughts that seem to shift this 50/50 into something less appealing so that 80% of the time they are feeling terrible even though from the outside, from a stranger’s perspective they have nothing to feel terrible about.
They create their own drama and focus on stress and worry instead of letting things just be and feeling grateful and appreciative of this amazing world we are so blessed to live in.
This is where you need to ask yourself when we speak about struggle which is defined as “to experience difficulty or exert great effort to achieve something or to face an adversary or an opposing force” is your struggle real or imagined?
I like to think of these struggles as little hurdles I need to jump over every day and I expect that humans will have a number of hurdles pop up every day over the course of their life.
To me this is normal and there is no pain for me now when they pop up because I already know they appear not just for me but every human in this world.
In the past a lot of my self-imposed stress and grief has come from thinking that I should experience zero hurdles in life and when I slip back into this mindset that my day should be totally smooth-sailing I get upset and annoyed if something unexpected pops up because I feel like it shouldn’t have happened.
But it did and because I thought is SHOULDN’T have transpired my thoughts about this struggle are less of acceptance and grace and more frustration and stress.
So be mindful of your thoughts when it comes to struggles and what your expectations about all these hurdles which appear in your life.
I should also note that when it comes to this 50/50 rule you may think it doesn’t apply to you because your life feels 100% great right now but it’s helpful to step back and look at it over the course of your lifetime.
You may not have days that are 50/50 but instead have years where life is a little tougher and then life is a little easier after that but it always comes balances out to be 50/50.
But what I want you to take away from this episode is that we can choose how to view this 50 where life is a little tougher differently.
We can choose to see these struggles as a gift.
We can choose to see these struggles as a time for growth.
We can choose to imagine that just like a caterpillar struggling within its cocoon that there is a rhyme and reason to what sometimes feels like madness and in the end we will emerge from these experiences much like a butterfly does after it frees itself from its cocoon and finally spreads its wings and flies.
So be appreciative of your struggles.
Be kind and compassionate to yourself when you are going through these more difficult days.
This is a human experience to go through challenging times and you are definitely not alone in feeling this way. It all comes down to how you view these experiences – you can always CHOOSE to view them as a helpful event, that has a greater purpose you may not yet understand, that is teaching you something useful in life and strengthening you from within.
Or you can CHOOSE to fight it, get upset and turn what could viewed as a blessing into a lesson you experience again and again and again because life has a way of wanting to teach us the same lessons repeatedly until we finally understand it and are ready to move onto the next step.
But it’s always a choice and you get to CHOOSE which way you wish to view your struggles.
So choose wise and take your pick!
Once again I hope this information has been useful to you and I can’t wait to catch you in the next episode. As always I appreciate having you guys with me so much. Until next time, dream big my friend!
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Hey, I’m Frances Vidakovic! I help you live a richer, lighter life while pursuing dreamy goals – without sacrificing your soul, sanity or family life. 🫶🏻 Author. Coach. Course Creator. DON’T DIE UNHAPPY! → Wake up. Do what matters. Savour it all 🌷