4 Benefits Of Life Challenges That Train You To Grow Stronger
Ever feel like your life is holding you down?
getty We all go through various life challenges.
Is there anyone or anything in the world right now that you're trying to control — or at least get some cooperation from — but they just won't let you?
Is it your child? Your spouse? A family member?
Is it COVID-19? The current lockdown? Your business or finances?
In the midst of frustration, worries, and helplessness, there's one thing you need to remember: The very issue giving you trouble is also the same issue that will teach you something about life.
More specifically, it teaches you about how you've been running your life and how you're living it now.
And, fortunately, you can learn how to overcome challenges in life and become a stronger, better person than you were before.
Here are the 4 life challenges that train you to grow stronger.
1. Personal struggles are fertile ground for growth and success.
As a therapist and supervisor, I often see — in myself and my students — how our professional work is bound by how much growth we can allow ourselves to work through in our personal life.
This goes for all professions, whether you are a therapist, baker, artist, businessperson, or homemaker — when you first work on yourself (i.e., addressing your own perspectives and emotions), things tend to flow better and you produce better, more sustainable results.
Even for someone in highly technical fields like IT or engineering, their best work is often produced when they can empathize with human structures, systems, and even suffering.
In other words, what we are struggling with now in our personal lives is very much the key to success in our professional lives.
Far be it that we are striving for perfection. Not at all, because life is not perfect and it is our personal struggle as human beings that connects us to the suffering of our clients.
Hence, if I want any further breakthrough with my clients, I must also be committed to finding breakthroughs in my own life.
2. Challenges are here to heal you.
Consider this: Who or what have you been trying to tame without much success?
Notice how this person or issue begins to tame you — to slow down, relax and breathe, go easier with yourself, be more daring or flexible, give more and expect less, allow more and resist less, and above all, to know that you are loved and cared for, even in your worst moments or apparent failures.
At first, it may appear as though the person or issue exists to hurt you. But look again! Perhaps where you feel disturbed or hurt the most is a hidden wound or sore point that the person or issue is trying to uncover for you!
In fact, it is by becoming aware of the unhealed places in our lives that give them a chance to finally be acknowledged, so we can find closure and a deeper transformation in ourselves.
3. You get to know a new side of yourself.
Life challenges often make us stronger and more courageous people, well beyond our imagination.
Even if a situation breaks us down, it also shows us that what can so easily be broken down is really just a façade or illusion of our own image. Perhaps the tearing down needs to happen to make way for a more solid structure to be rebuilt.
This process can also be seen in our ecosystem. First, a storm struck down some big, ancient trees that previously block the sun from coming in.
The change of landscape initially looks bare and messy, but gradually, it also gives other species that didn’t have a chance before an opportunity to have the space to grow and shine!
With every change, there is the grief of loss and the stress of adaptation. We may miss our old way of life that’s built on egoistic control and predictability.
But if we allow our troubles to tame us, our openness may actually lead us to great discoveries about our true selves — the natural passion and compassion that we already have within each of us.
4. You overcome your fears by loving more.
Whether it be the spread of COVID-19, the global economic recession, your terrible two-year-old at home, the endless house chores, or financial burden on your back, the troubles that come to us are really seeking to tame us.
They are trying to help us become more loving people to ourselves and to each other. This is easier said than done, not because we are incompetent or unwilling.
We just feel fearful. Hence, we keep resorting to old familiar ways of thinking and doing things.
"That’s how things are." We brainwash ourselves to believe the story we tell ourselves.
But where there is fear, there is also much potential for love — the kind of love that’s your biggest dream or deepest desire.
You can’t hush your fears, which can be really loud at times. But you can keep choosing to move towards your love, one millimeter at a time.
Whenever in doubts again, remind yourself that you have come far enough by now to stay stuck in your old stories or go back to your old way of thinking.
Keep moving forward, because the life and love you want to re-create awaits you!
Dr. Wai-Sheng Ng (Psy.D.) is the founder and clinical director of Growing Space Psychology Center in Malaysia. She has 18 years of experience in the mental health field, working with individuals, couples, and families. Trained in clinical psychology, family therapy, and spiritual companionship, Wai-Sheng is passionate about helping people grow and expand. Check out her private practice and articles on her website or get connected with her now at her email drng@growingspace.org.