This being human is a guest house. Every morning is a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor…Welcome and entertain them all. Treat each guest honorably. The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing and invite them in. Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.

Rumi

One of our biggest struggles in life is that we have been taught that struggle is a bad thing. That it is something to be avoided. And it doesn’t help that are own biology illudes us into thinking this could be true, because it is uncomfortable to be in struggle. The truth is it is uncomfortable when we grow, change, or learn new things. It disrupts the homeostasis, so of course our bodies and minds will fidget while it occurs. But struggle is the gift…not the enemy. The enemy is the idea we have been sold that we should not struggle.

All things in life can be our teacher. All feelings, thoughts, and circumstances give us another opportunity to be a better human. And what this really means is that all variations of struggle are an opportunity for our growth. We don’t always see it that way. And we have certainly not been equipped to by conventional wisdom. I think that it is important to remember and address where this convention is coming from. Who is making up the rule that struggle is a bad thing, a thing to be avoided? Who’s message is this? Because it most certainly is not a message that is helping us to grow.

I believe that one of the strongest drivers of avoiding struggle is our American economy. In a market driven largely by enticing you to buy what you don’t necessarily need, but do want, there are large scale strategies at making this “want” seem the most desirable. There is even a bit of blurring in the lines between what is needed and what is wanted. Am I right? To pick on myself a minute, let’s talk about aging skin. The premise of most skin care products is that there is an ideal beauty. This beauty has a short natural window of time in our youth. The rest of the time we spend countless hours and money trying to replicate this ideal. I can’t tell you the amount of time and money I have spent trying to get that look back from my youth. But I have to ask, if I was inviting the “guest” of aged skin into my house and accepting what it had come to teach me, would I be so ready to through money at trying to stave this process off?

The key is treating our negative experiences, feelings, or thoughts “honorably”, as Rumi indicates. Giving these messengers grace and compassion, rather than labeling them as bad and resisting them. Make these parts of yourself “guest”s in your life. Let these parts of you know they are welcome. That their messages are important. And in time, as your grace and compassion softens you, give these “guest”s your attention and time, so as to learn what they have come to teach you. Accepting their gifts, instead of resisting them.

All parts of us are valuable. Even the things we don’t like very much or that make us uncomfortable. All of our experiences, even our struggles, deserve to be heard and seen and known. Love all of yourself, all events in your life, not just the things that are easy to love.

This is our life’s work. This is our sacred journey as humans.

Why wouldn’t we change some thing about ourselves that’s irritating? I’ll tell you why…because it’s not a part of us that needs changing. It’s a part of us that needs acceptance. It’s a part of us that needs loving. It’s a part of us. And therefore it should not be something that we reject but some thing that we pull close. But what if these aspects of our self are in opposition to other aspects of our self? How do we accept those? This is the paradox. That two seemingly opposite things can be true at the same time, even when they are opposite things about ourselves. These can be excepted. These can coexist. And the way we facilitate peace about this is through loving all aspects of our self…the good, the not good, and everything in between.

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The key is this: meet today’s problems with today’s strength. Don’t start tackling tomorrow’s problems until tomorrow. You don’t have tomorrow’s strength yet. You simply have enough for today.

Max Lucado

Stay in the present. With all its gifts, joys, burdens, and struggles. We get ahead of ourselves all too often. We think that worry is actually problem solving. As if running all the worst case scenarios in our head is giving us the edge. Is strengthening our resolve. Is sharpening our sword.

In fact it is doing quite the opposite. You see, our brain is not always the brightest bulb. The mind is a tool, remember, and should not be the master. No, the brain thinks if you’re thinking something than it is actually happening. In fact, studies show that when scanning the brain during an activity AND when scanning the brain while imagining that same activity, the very same neural pathways are firing. Basically, our brains don’t perceive a difference between reality and imagination.

Spend 30 minutes agonizing about how to make a phone call to your family member about some help you desperately need and don’t want to ask for, only to spend 4 minutes on the phone with them. And don’t forget the 20 minute recap on feeling self pity that you’re in a position that you needed to ask them for help at all. Well folks, I’m sorry to tell you but the pain of 4 minutes turned into the suffering of 54.

And that’s just it. When we play things out in our mind, our body and soul is experiencing it as if it is real. No wonder we are so exhausted all the time, with all the running around, second guessing and Monday morning quarterbacking we do.

So why not use what we know the brain will inevitably do to our advantage. Why not practice in our mind being here in just this moment…enjoying it when it’s desirable, spending time feeling grateful, and tolerating the pain of what is right in front of us, but not adding to it with our preemptive worries or ruminative replays of events. When we practice being here in just this moment, we add in more of the things that lift us up and use the resources we know we have at this very moment and are confident in. No more and no less.

Therapists call living in this way, Mindfulness. It is a matter of nonjudgmentally being in the present moment and only managing what we need to in the now. Not worrying about our pasts or our futures. When we have a hard day, this is really tough. It can be easy to start stacking our problems together, comparing them to other times we have experienced these things, and worrying that this will just keep happening. Being Mindful is a way to practice self-compassion. To be kind to ourselves by only expecting that we can handle the problem of the present moment with the skills and resources we have in any given present moment.

Here is a tip. Take a breath when hard things start happening and try saying something like this to yourself, “I only have to manage what is happening in just this moment and I am doing the best I can with what I have. I will handle just this moment and when the next thing comes, I will leave that to the strength and knowledge I will have in that next moment and only manage what is in front of me for now.”

Take the advice in this quote and try this tip. Be in the moment and solve today’s needs with today’s strengths and leave Tomorrowland to Disney.