We spend so much energy trying to change the things we truly cannot change, which leaves us with little energy to change the things we can. We wrestle with our past choices, worry about future ones, and spend so much time wishing things looked very different to what they do. We think we just have to ‘try harder’, when maybe what we need to do is completely change the way we’re looking at things.
Have you ever heard the Greek mythological story of Sisyphus?
Sisyphus angered the god Thanatos and was condemned to a terrible and hopeless task, which was to push a heavy boulder all the way up a steep hill. But the hard part was that he would never reach the top because it would always prove to be too heavy and roll back down. Thanatos doomed Sisyphus to repeat this task for all eternity.
Often we do this too in our lives without even having the awareness that we are.
Our attempts to escape painful thoughts and feelings are like Sisyphus pushing his boulder up a hill. It’s hard work, it takes all our energy, it’s exhausting and it’s never completed! We never seem to be able to push our boulder over the hill.. even though we may seem to get so close sometimes.
When we look to escape what is all a natural part of life with eating, drinking, drugs, binge watching, or whatever we’ve done in attempts to self soothe, we definitely feel better for a little brief moment. But sooner or later that emotional distress returns… just as the heavy rock falls back down the hill.
We may then jump in to our mind trying to interpret this for us, and we fall for the false thoughts that say there’s something wrong with us, because we just can’t seem to ‘get rid’ of these feelings permanently.
But in fact… no human can do this.
As long as we keep investing our time and energy in this pursuit, we’re doomed to exhaustion and failure.
Are you ready to see another way?
The rule of the outside world is that if you work hard enough, you can usually get rid of what you don’t like. We then innocently translate this to be the same for our inner world. But this is the big illusion that tricks us all.
The rule of the inner world states: if you don’t like something in your inner world (that is your world of thoughts, feelings, memories, urges, and sensations) you usually can’t get rid of it. Instead, trying to get rid of it actually makes things worse. The more important you make it not to crave chocolate for example, the more likely you will crave chocolate. The more important you make it not to have insecure thoughts about your body, the more like you will have them.
Our feelings aren’t like the ugly couch we can just remove and replace.
What to do then?
Well this is a lot of what I share and encourage my members to see within my group coaching program, The Art of Thriving. If this resonates at all with you, consider joining us. Until the 12th November 2022, you can take 50% off the full price or part payment price and step in to join us for 2023. You can find out more here, and use the coupon code: THRIVER2023