Embracing Difficulty as a way to a Life Lived Fully

“Our idea of happiness may be the very thing that’s preventing us from being happy”  – Thich Nhat Hanh

Compared with any time in history nearly all of us have riches, comfort and convenience our ancestors couldn’t imagine. We have huge pantries called supermarkets down the road, where we can grab any food we want with a flick of a piece of plastic. We have houses, healthcare and dentistry, police to protect us and insurance to cover our material losses….self-propelled chariots and flying machines to take us wherever we want to go.

Then there’s Christmas….. now, we hardly know what to do with ourselves because we’ve had so much abundance all year round.

So we become unhappy, always trying to make it MORE.

Michael Easter in his book ‘The Comfort Crisis’, explains that people are unhappier now than ever before, we have ‘all the things’, yet we are all struggling to feel happy.

So why are we unhappier than ever before?

I reflect on the quote above by Thich Nhat Hanh and think of our relentless desire to have more, to feel more comfortable, and to be free of suffering which prompted me to get curious about unpacking some of the myths of happiness (and suffering) in our society, and how we could reframe some of our perceptions just as the ancient wisdom traditions have talked about for thousands of years.

We think happiness comes in gifts - but can you notice the stillness within?

When we were kids, we learned that our greatest happiness comes from special days decided by others (like Christmas) where we get gifts and sugary food. As we grow up we continue to look for happiness in material things, special days decided by others, and people that give us ‘likes’.  We have been trained to seek happiness from without, not to allow it to arise naturally from within.  

To allow stillness to arise naturally, we can be in quiet, and feel a sense of peace within, and reconnect to ourselves, then we realise there’s nothing to chase, that we already have who we are, right here, now, and that is enough. We no longer chase the external pleasures we once thought brought us true happiness. We start to become aware of how we have been brought up  -  to resist stillness. We notice the conditioning from our world around us  - the advertising, the messages about what it means to be successful, and the ego that’s fuelling our cravings for status, and approval from our external world. And we notice that’s it’s all a game, and not sustainable happiness.

We notice it, so it no longer has power over our thoughts, decisions and our peace. In fact we notice it only takes us further away from that stillness within. The key to not craving new things is to experience the bliss and peace we have within.

We think suffering is unfavourable - but what is it’s deeper purpose?

In our modern world, you could say, that suffering is only seen as having a downside.  

However, the ancient wisdom traditions have documented that suffering is actually necessary as part of living a meaningful life. In fact, it serves as a catalyst for spiritual growth.

These days, we seem to be very quick to medicate our difficult emotions, and label them as ‘disorders’ rather than ask ourselves the question ‘What are they are telling us about what needs to change in our lives?”  Some psychiatrists, such as Anders Hansen, in his book “The Happiness Cure”  point out that depression is a form of pain, emotional pain. Like physical pain it serves a useful purpose to protect us.

“An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behaviour, rather than sickness to the brain.”

It may be that rather than needing ‘more’ to feel better, we need less. It could be that social conditioning, the pressure to conform, to buy stuff, to be liked, to people please, is suffocating our spirit.  The fact that rates of depression and anxiety are going up in an increasingly abundant and socially connected world, makes me think this is very true. In the words of Jiddu Krishnamurti;

“It’s no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”

We think suffering is bad, and something to get rid of – but without suffering, we wouldn’t know joy and happiness

Suffering is the flip side of happiness. Often a problem will arise in our life, and we want to immediately get rid of the suffering. When we do this, we also get rid of joy and fulfilment on the other side. Just like you can’t see white writing on white paper, if we don’t know suffering, we don’t know joy, because there is no contrast.

When we label suffering as ‘bad’, it only makes it worse, because we end up seeing our suffering as something to avoid at any cost, and that approach often creates even more suffering. Think about how addiction often works in this way. We choose a substance or behaviour to sooth our pain, but then that substance or behaviour becomes habitual and causes greater problems. Recovery, involves our willingness to be with our difficult emotions with compassion, gentleness and open-heartedness.

Furthermore, when we have had no major struggles, no adversity in our life, we end up inventing suffering! Look at what we get upset about today in our affluent society (compared with what our ancestors had to deal with).

The medical ideal of health simplifies our human experience to this somewhat bland and linear explanation of what it means to be healthy - that being healthy is to be free from disease. However this seems to reduce our existence into some sort of a machine, where we just remove one part that’s ‘deficient’ or ‘broken’ and then we will be ‘well.’ This definition doesn’t describe what it means to be full of vitality and experience the deeper emotions of contentment, and fulfilment and curiosity for the wonders of life, that comes with a life lived fully.

“Wanting a positive experience is a negative experience. Accepting a negative experience is a positive experience” – Alan Watts

A Life Lived Fully Means Embracing Difficulty

A life lived fully is a life where we take risks, where we have ups and downs. Just as all the world’s cultures have told their version of Hero’s journey around the campfires of the past to the modern media of today. The hero answers a calling from within, and takes on a huge challenge, is confronted with obstacles, and comes back a changed person – with new skills, competencies, and confidence that they didn’t have previously.

The Japanese term Misogi, has also been used to describe the benefits of how we can take on a challenge so difficult that we could fail, so that we test the edges of our potential (read more here).

“It’s not because things are difficult that we do not dare, it is because we do not dare that they are difficult” - Seneca

In summary

Perhaps the goal here is not to seek constant joy?

Perhaps the goal is not to chase happiness?

 As Anders Hansen also quotes,
“Happiness is a by-product that appears when you focus on something meaningful.”

Jo Jarden is a certified personal trainer and yoga teacher in Christchurch New Zealand and the founder of Heart and Mind Yoga studio. She has 10 years experience in health promotion in New Zealand and Australia including management and promotion of national chronic disease prevention programs. She now helps people one on one with their wellbeing through health coaching, yoga teaching, personal training, workplace yoga and wellness events. 

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