A friend of mine put a post up online talking about how he struggles. It wasn’t a poor me attention grabbing post, he was trying to remind people that struggling was universal. If you’re human, you’re going to struggle.
Struggle, work, effort, striving, (whatever word resonates with you) isn’t necessarily a bad thing. In fact, we need it. Out heart gets healthier when we put it through the strain of a workout. Our relationships get better when we go through a tough and honest conversation. Our brains get smarter when we struggle through a math problem.
We need to struggle. But we don’t need to suffer. Embracing the former helps eliminate the latter.
If your struggling has turned into suffering, know that you don’t need to suffer. You may need to feel things deeply, but that doesn’t have to be suffering. And you certainly don’t need to suffer alone.
I’ve talk about compassion and self care a lot. One of the biggest acts of self care is to ask for help. If you’re suffering, ask for help. It won’t take away the need to keep working, but it absolutely can take away the needless suffering.
As Ram Das once said, “We’re all just walking each other home.” Don’t walk, or suffer, alone.
