Discover the power of embracing stress as a vehicle for personal growth. Uncover the transformative potential of facing life's challenges head-on.
“What does not kill me makes me stronger.”
Friedrich Nietzsche
If you went by people’s Facebook profiles, you might think that everyone was having a better life than you.
Our culture has practically turned positivity into a religion.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for focusing on the energy we want to expand.
But the truth is, people mostly just avoid the messy stuff, and not just in public.
It’s easier to live in a haze of alcohol, weed or Netflix, or bury ourselves in work or other busyness, than to confront the uncomfortable bits of our lives.
At least short term.
The opposite is also true.
The virtual world is filled with people crying, whining and wailing about unwanted circumstances they seem powerless to change.
These people don’t avoid the mess, they practically celebrate it.
Both approaches to life’s challenges have the same result — more of the same.
Just like adding energy to a negative situation, sweeping issues under the carpet will only make them fester.
So what’s the alternative to ignoring or fighting reality?
Transforming.
Life will always present unwanted circumstances, some of them very painful.
But pain is not our enemy.
It is our teacher.
If we didn’t have pain when we put our hand on a hot stove, we would do infinitely more damage to ourselves.
Not feeling pain is actually called Congenital Insensitivity to Pain (CIP), and can (for obvious reasons) lead to severe injury or death.
When I was healing from chronic fatigue, I learned about the power of moderate stress.
“Hormesis is a biological phenomenon where a low dose of a potentially harmful stressor…stimulates a beneficial adaptive response in an organism.”
Exercise is a good example.
You stress your muscles to create small tears that cause the muscles to heal back stronger than they were before.
Saunas, cold showers, and snow rolling are other examples, where extreme temperatures cause the production of more mitochondria and improve the immune system, among other things.
Emotional and mental stress is the same.
I’m not suggesting we go out looking for it by creating conflict or upset, but unless you’re living in a bubble and avoiding personal growth, it will find you.
That’s when we have a choice.
We can recoil into a past version of ourselves, avoiding the challenges of becoming a fully actualized adult, or we can face the pain as an opportunity to become the person we were born to be.
What doesn’t damage or kill us emotionally or mentally, can be used to make us stronger.
To forge our greatest selves.
In our culture of instant gratification and pain aversion, it’s easy to either avoid the pain or become it.
There is value in looking into the abyss, but only with an empowering context.
Nietzsche warned about becoming the monster we focus upon, which is easily observable if you look at any division in the world today.
But if we face our inner demons with compassion and patience, we will find that everything really does happen for us, if we choose to allow it.
To paraphrase an even older philosopher…
Let the mess be our medicine.
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Where are you sabotaging your potential by avoiding or resisting unwanted circumstances?
Contact Michelle at info@michelleleduccatlin.com for a free consultation to see if 1on1 coaching is a fit for you.
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