The Journey - Challenges Never End

I was reminded this morning of a favorite passage from a book that's had a profound impact on millions of people throughout the years. The book is called The Road Less Traveled by m Scott Peck. And he says this. And the reason why I'm reading these these first couple of paragraphs, I just relate it to what I'm experiencing in life right now with not only myself, but all the clients that I'm currently working with, and all the clients that I've worked with through the years. And I think this is a profound truth that's helpful to get to get our feet grounded.

This is what it says, life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult, once we truly understand and accept it, then life no longer becomes difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters.

And it seems like when I'm working with my clients, and have been through the years, they come into therapy because they're looking for a resolution to the challenges that they're presently facing. And I'm reminded of something that I recently heard from John Gottman, who is, one of the leading researchers in the world as it relates to relationship issues, couples issues. And his research. The purpose behind it is to help individuals understand what prosperous couples do, people who make it in their relationships, and those that don't make it. So he has some wonderful information out there.

But the thing I wanted to highlight this morning is something that I heard. He says, you know, we follow people for a number of years, And he says 70% of the problems that people were dealing with years earlier, they're still dealing with today. In in essence And they're still together, and they're happy, and they figured out a way to manage them. The point is the problems don't go away. Personalities don't really change that much.

We can learn how to manage the obstacle that's in front of us, but it but the challenges never go away. And back to, mscottpeck in his book, just another little part of of the following paragraph. And this is what I see in most of the clients that have come to see me also, relating to life is challenging and difficult. Most do not fully see this truth, that life is difficult. Instead, they moan more or less incessantly, noisily or subtly, about the enormity of their problems, their burdens, and their difficulties, as if life were generally easy, as if it should be easy.

And in end of quoting the book, the reality is that our challenges never end. They're not supposed to end. There's purpose behind the obstacle that is before us. It's a wonderful book out by Ryan Holiday, I would recommend it. It's called The Obstacle is the Way.

Draws on a lot of, stoic, philosophers, their thoughts. And Marcus Aurelius, one of the last great Roman emperors, he said this. He says, impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way. So as we we look at our lives, and we look at sometimes our troubling thoughts, and I have a lot of individuals I'm I'm working with right now where they're dealing with anxiety and depression, troubling thoughts.

The thoughts are not so much the issue. We don't control where thoughts come from. We all have strange thoughts. We all have discouraging thoughts. As a matter of fact, our brain is built from the from the emotional limbic part of the brain.

It's built to have it, what's called a negativity bias. The brain looks for negative things. It scans for negative things, because those are the things that can harm us and hurt us. And when we understand that's how the brain works, then we can kind of chill out a little bit and not be expecting to reach this place where our problems are all taken care of. That's just not life.

It's not how it works. Every single day as we roll through life, there's gonna be different challenges and obstacles. The car breaks down. We have a flat tire. We have a a poor interaction with someone with work.

Maybe they're not doing well that day. It's just the constant process of life. But when we embrace that, it's a concept that I also call power through surrender. When we surrender to the things we cannot change, and and and also fits into the serenity prayer. Right?

God, grant me this serenity to accept the things I cannot change, to change to change the things that I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. But the main concept that I want to focus on in in this podcast is just accepting the reality that we're supposed to have challenges. We're supposed to go through things that are hard. It's like when we go to school, right, we're we're not supposed to understand everything. We're supposed to learn.

That's why it's frustrating. That's why it it mental health is learning to have more of a a positive relationship with pain. Pain is not a bad thing, in and of itself, if we learn from it. And it's something also, I was thinking this morning of, as I was working out at the gym, one of the things that I've committed to in my life is regular, physical activity. As a therapist, I think it's the healthiest thing that I can do to keep myself grounded.

I I wake up every morning at 4 o'clock. I'm to the gym by 5. I work out a minimum of 2 hours every day, and every single day, I hurt, I struggle, and sometimes I come home at night, and I'm I'm exhausted at the end of the day, and I'll tell my wife. I say, Hey, you know, honey, I'm not I'm not getting up tomorrow. I'm gonna sleep in, and and she just looks at me and raises raises her eyebrows and goes, yeah.

Oh, okay. And she just kinda smiles. Because she knows, when 4 o'clock comes, I'm gonna get up and go to the gym. I've committed myself to that. So the thoughts that I have is like, no, you can't do this.

No, this is too hard. It's you need some time off. And so I listen to those thoughts, and I pay attention to them, and I'm I'm not talking about if I really get hurt or something like that, then I'm not gonna go to the gym. I'm just talking about normal, it's challenging. It's hard to go through the routine that I go through.

But I've made a commitment to do those things. I've made a commitment to act in a certain way, in spite of the natural thoughts that I have that say, don't do this. Don't do that other rep. It's too hard. You don't need to do so much.

I'm I'm constantly wrestling with that. It's it's so so the thing is, I don't get mad at those thoughts anymore, because I cannot control where they come from. It's constantly a wrestle with those things, but I've chosen to live a certain valued life that I want to live for myself in spite of all the negative thoughts that I have. And so learning to focus on your actions rather than what your negative thoughts are telling you is is an important part of life, and you And we all can do that. But but I no longer get frustrated with those thoughts because they're gonna come.

Too many people that I work with are really disturbed by their thoughts. We all have weird thoughts. Every human being has weird thoughts. There's a lot of weird things going on in the world. They're strange things.

You see things on TV. I'm I'm dealing with a young 18 year old, boy who just turned 18 years old, and he is just so wigged out because of some of his thoughts. And when I said to him, that's just normal. Everyone has weird thoughts, and that's happened a number of times throughout the years in in dealing with clients, and they go, oh, really? Do other people have these fleeting thoughts too?

I said, of course they do. That's normal. It's just life. Don't be wigged out by them. They're just thoughts.

You can say, instead of, you know, saying, I feel this way. You can say, I have a thought that is saying this right now. Get some distance. Diffuse from that thought a little bit, and it can give you a little distance. So again, just just pay attention to your thoughts and feelings, and realize that you can act differently from your negative thoughts in accordance with the values that you have chosen for yourself, and therein lies your power.

It's not what your thoughts say. It's what you end up doing. So every morning, when I come home from the gym, there's a part of me that feels a great sense of satisfaction, even though I've been wrestling with my thoughts through the whole process. Because I'm where I wanna be physically, and there's a million different excuses. I'm 65 this year, and I don't think I've ever been in better shape physically.

So for those of you who are a little older, let's not use age as an excuse. And if if you get to the point where you retire, oh my goodness, you have all the time in the world to focus on getting your body and and your mental health in shape, but it's a continual process. There's no such thing as one and done. And so so when when you let that go, that you don't You you There's this never There's never this place of arrival. There is only being, and finding positive engagement and activity in the journey.

That is where life begins to have a deeper meaning. Not that we reach this certain place. So, anyway, those are my thoughts this morning. Hope you have a fantastic day.