Life should be joyful and effortless. If it’s a constant struggle, you’re doing it wrong!
There’s some Eastern wisdom that says that all suffering in life is self-imposed. Easy for me to say, right? I’ve never had to go through all the things you have. What about circumstance? What about health problems? What about life hammering you into the ground over and over again?
Life and I have not always gotten along. For the longest time, I fought against her at every turn, just to keep moving, just to achieve the most minimal of achievements. Those successes, however substantial, were often short lived and usually overshadowed by bigger failures elsewhere.
Today, Life feels like a river; carrying me effortlessly to all the places I need to go. Sure, there are some rapids from time to time, but now I have the tools I need to navigate them safely, and the calm flow returns always and shortly after.
My formula for success? Healthy Body, Healthy Mind, Healthy Spirit.
Each will be explored further in future articles. For now, let’s start off with something more general. Perhaps you’ve heard it before:
We can’t choose what happens to us, but we can choose how we deal with it.
There’s a lot of truth here, even though it’s not the full story. Nevertheless, this wisdom serves us well: Attitude is Everything. Two people can experience the same event and react completely differently. Is it not such a big deal or is it the end of the world? Maybe there’s a hidden opportunity. The bigger the event, the more extreme the reaction, which can range all the way from overwhelm, defeat and life-long suffering; to growth, wisdom and everlasting happiness.
The missing part here is that often we can choose what happens to us, even if we think it’s beyond our control. Our health is affected way more by our choices than our genes (read the upcoming Body article to see exactly just how much). We decide what company to keep, which activities we prioritize, what jobs we work in and which situations we stay in. Alongside attitude, all of these are major influences on our happiness and quality of life.
We love to blame our suffering on external factors - because these are out of our control, and there’s nothing for us to do. It’s always easier to get angry, decry the injustice of it all and wallow in our own self pity, than it is to admit we have the choice and power to take actual - but hard - steps to change our situation; especially when we’re not completely confident in the outcome. Like all physical bodies (in physics), we suffer from inertia, stuck in the comfort of the familiar, even our miserable familiar. It takes a certain maturity to see the bigger picture; to think in the long term and motivate ourselves to change.
The biggest blame, of course, is Life itself: This keeps happening to me. Over and over. Why me? Is this my lot in life? To suffer this same, miserable fate over and over again?
Think of Life as a harsh teacher. There’s a lesson she wants you to learn. But she won’t just give you the answer. She’ll keep giving you the exercise, over and over and over again until you get it right. It’s up to us to figure out the knowledge, the tools and the wisdom we need to solve this problem in the general case. Don’t just keep doing the same thing over and over expecting different results (and no, Einstein did not say this in relation to insanity).
Did you already change yourself, the people around you, everything, and still, the same uncanny misfortune managed to track you down? Change some more. Grow some more. Re-evaluate past conclusions. Re-assess the tools you're using. Re-consider your point of view. It’s an incredible feeling when the same circumstance repeats itself but the situation doesn’t. You realize that you’ve finally grown beyond it.
Are Body, Mind & Spirit a “hierarchy of needs”? Or are they co-dependent?
Each affects the others, each is affected by the others. To be at their best, each requires the others to be at their best too, all at the same time. An unhealthy body detracts from sharpness of thought and limits spiritual progression. An unhealthy mind invents physical illness and rejects the spirit. An unhealthy spirit manifests itself as negative thought patterns in the mind and physical issues in the body. Your focus should be on all three simultaneously for optimum growth.
This crucial understanding will be emphasized again in each of the upcoming articles. If you’re not seeing the desired results in a particular sphere of your life - despite all your efforts - consider diverting some attention elsewhere and see if it has an effect. If not, take another look at your current efforts and reflect on what can be changed and improved. Consider that:
Success = the right method + the right effort.
We all know it’s unlikely to achieve anything without putting in the necessary hard work. The converse is true too: no matter how much effort we put in, if we’re using a flawed technique, at best we’ll get nowhere and at worst we may actually hurt or injure ourselves. To progress, we need the ability to observe the results of our work, and the insight to plan our next steps. To this end, a good teacher or coach is often invaluable.
All can benefit from better observation, however. I encourage you to develop and cultivate it as your constant ally. Observe everything. From the physical objects passing by you to the emotions passing over you. Notice every possible detail you can about them. This preparation will be of great benefit to you before our next article on the Healthy Mind.