By Scott Grace
If you are like me, there is an annoying voice inside your brain that sometimes whispers things like “easy does it”, “take it easy”, or “relax, and take a breath.” This is the sabotaging still small voice that rudely interferes with your ability to push yourself harder, berate yourself when you fail, and follow those standard Puritan Marching Orders we were born to follow.
I want to support you to fully indulge in your God given right to struggle your way through life. I am on your side!
The good news is that still small voice can be silenced and heard from no more. Here’s how, in three simple steps.
1. Believe and act like your safety, security, and happiness are dependent on people and forces outside of you that you can’t control, and try to control them.
2. If you do not succeed, try harder.
3. Repeat ad nauseous.
For those of you who prefer to keep it complex, here is my six step program that will help you contact your lower power, abstain from ease one day at a time, and even perfect your struggle practice, securing for you adn your loved ones a guaranteed daily overdose of adrenaline.
#1. Harness The Power Of Fearful Thinking - Everybody dwells on fear on occasion. What if I can’t pay my bills? What if I lose my house? What if I get sick? What if I’m alone for life? What if I’m in this relationship for life? But as your struggle coach, I want you to go the extra mile and focus all of your attention on the scariest possible outcomes all of the time. When this discipline has been achieved, you can relax into the certainty that you will always find something to struggle with in any situation, and anxiety, exhaustion and despair will never abandon you again.
#2. Be Busy Till You’re Dizzy - Being too busy to still your mind and take good care of your body is essential on the path to Struggle Realization. Temptation is everywhere these days - health food stores, spas, gyms, yoga studios, meditation classes. It takes courage to resist a pause, to breathe shallowly, and continue to stress while the whole world is reciting mantras, stretching, chanting, and going organic. Remember, as our parents and religious institutions told us, engaging in self-meditation causes blindness, losing sight of all the things right in front of you to struggle with.
So wake up every morning painfully early, splash cold water on your face, brew up your caffeine, and go, speed racer, go! Have you answered all your emails? Who needs a shoulder to lean on? Is there something on TV? Always make sure your life and your mind are filled with clutter and free of those dangerous empty spaces between your thoughts that can disturb your absence of peace. Fight the good fight, and never take off those boxing gloves!
#3. Have A Swinging Good Time – In the 60's and 70's, a swinger was a person who relieved the monotony of monogamy by attending a variety of extra-curricular relationships. Nowadays, the term swingers has broadened, and is often used to refer to seasoned strugglers when they are found swinging like a pendulum from one extreme to another, churning with the thrill of constant crises, skillfully sidestepping the boredom of emotional stability. Would you like to be able to create, at the snap your fingers, a soap opera drenched in struggle anytime you want? All you need to do is to resist your true feelings till you can’t hold them in any longer, and then explode without restraint or care for anyone, especially the ones you care most about. As a practice, try being 100% nice and sweet. Stretch yourself to accommodate someone as much and as long as you can, and then take the lid off and let the steam out, like Mt. Saint Helens does once in a while. There is nothing as satisfying as having a good eruption after being good and silent for a spell. Sure, you’ll make a colossal mess, but think of the colossal struggle it will take to clean it up.
#4. Set Huge Goals, Maintain Unrealistic Expectations - There is nothing more beneficial to your lifestyle of struggle than the habit of reaching for the stars, believing it's all up to you, not getting support, falling short of your lofty goals, and feeling like a huge failure. Taking big leaps and falling flat on your face is paramount for maintaining healthy low self-esteem, which is the foundation of all good struggle. Go for the mountaintop, and don’t look down at your feet on your way. One step at a time is for people satisfied with proceeding at a snail’s pace, always leaving behind a slime trail of serenity, gentleness, balance, and other dismal downers that struggle kings and queens take royal pains to avoid. You can do better than that!
#5. Judge Your Judgments – Every human being judges, but only the ones who have learned the art of judging their own judgments excel in creating epic struggle. Have you ever been known to shame and blame yourself for feeling afraid and stuck, telling yourself that there is something terribly wrong with you for not moving forward? Good! You are on the right track. Now, take your next step. Judge your judgments! Tell yourself that you should know better than to shame and blame yourself. Heap truckloads of guilt on yourself for stooping so low to the curb of self-criticism, yet again. This will make you quite an energetic downer that can’t help but suck energy from those around you. You’ll be the lifelessness of the party!
#6. Get Grounded In The 3 B’s…. Blame, Blame, & Blame - Blaming yourself has already been covered. But don’t rest there. Blame everyone else too. Life’s not going the way you want? Blame, blame, blame! Blame first, ask questions and take responsibility later, if at all. Appropriate targets are Mom and Dad, friends (if you still have any), your mate (if they are still around), Donald Trump, Hilary Clinton, big corporations, small minds, and, of course, God. Self-responsibility can lead to issues finding solutions, which flushes good struggle right down the drain. Instead, be generous with the blame dispenser, letting it overflow on everyone, uncontained, uncensored, unedited. Be the victim you were born to be. It's your destiny. Blame, Blame, Blame!
Affirmations For Good Struggle
Every day in every way I am struggling with everything, real or imagined.
Everything is working together to conspire to bring the worst possible outcome to my doorstep.
Life is against me and I am doomed.
This, or something worse, is now manifesting for the highest cost to all concerned.
I no longer have to struggle to create struggle. Struggle happens effortlessly and naturally, within and around me.
Whatever calamity I can conceive, I can achieve.
I always have everything I need to resist everything that comes my way, and all is hell in my world.
Do you want the antidote to this article?
It's here:
The Ease Factor
With Joy,
Scott Grace, Ease Ambassador
