No. The short answer is that no one gets through life without struggle. Even the most gilded lives come with some struggle. So you can’t stop that from happening. But you can prevent suffering. Because it’s the way we react to struggle that determines whether or not we suffer as a result.
Struggle vs suffering
Suffering is the emotional response to struggle. And often it comes from an expectation that life can be lived without struggle. Which tends to lead to huge disappointment when struggle arises. Which it does for everyone. Struggle is really the act of dealing with the hard stuff that life throws at all of us. Actively looking to accept, handle, progress or try in the face of things going wrong. Some of the responses that create suffering include:
- Refusing to accept that something isn’t happening when it already is.
- Trying to squash down feelings (piling them up to explode at a later date).
- Toxic positivity – refusing to acknowledge hard things happening.
- Feeling like the struggle can only end if someone saves you.
- Being hard on yourself when something hard happens.
- Telling yourself the hard things are happening because you’re the problem.
How to avoid suffering: expect struggle
I’d love to have some secret to living life without struggle to share with you. But to be honest you can’t live a life without struggle unless you don’t really live your life. Even then, struggle will find its way in through a whole other set of problems. So, my first tip is to expect the struggle. That’s not catastrophising or predicting the worst. It’s just accepting that this is part of life and happens to everyone, no matter who they are, what they have or what they have done.
Develop self-compassion
One of the biggest shifts my clients see when it comes to moving away from suffering is changing their inner narrative. A harsh and critical inner narrative is like putting on blinkers that only allow you to see negativity, feel anxiety and underestimate yourself. You can’t access any of your resources if you listen to a harsh inner narrative. Not your creativity, problem solving ability, audacity or courage. Instead you’ll just sink into self-blame and shame and go nowhere. Self-compassion has been proven to help us assimilate the lessons of our failures. It gives us the freedom to problem solve and think outside the box. And it calms the nervous system and brings it out of fight/flight/freeze that self-criticism triggers.
Resilience coaching will give you some great tools for dealing differently with struggle – and avoiding suffering- from nervous system self-soothing to emotional regulation and mindset work. It’s key to helping you bounce back. But it will also help you spring forward. To navigate times of struggle in a way that doesn’t leave you completely lost and depleted. And give you ways to help you expand into the best version of you – confident, calm and clear sighted.
So, no, you can’t live with struggle – but you don’t have to live with suffering either.
