Do you ever tell yourself, “Life is hard?” Last night I was speaking to a friend and he commented, “Life is hard, isn’t it?”
I replied, “Well, if you believe that life is hard, then life will be hard.”
He stopped and thought about what I had said, and then corrected himself, “You are right. Life is beautiful.”
The things we say to ourselves create what we experience in life. In February when I had only been in France for about a month, I ran into a woman in her mid-sixties at the bus stop. We started a friendly conversation and then she said, “life is a battle.” I asked her why she felt that way. She spoke of how much easier life was twenty or thirty years earlier. Then I responded similarly. “If we think life is a battle we will have battles to fight.” Soon after my bus arrived and that was the end of that conversation, but it made have a better understanding of why I was noticing many people walking down the streets lined with palm and plane trees with mountain views in the distance and brilliant blue skies overhead looking so downtrodden.
I’m not saying that there aren’t times when we experience difficult situations in life that cause us to feel stress or exert a lot of effort to get through them. What I am saying is that if you believe and if you even say life is hard, life is a battle, then you will experience a life where you push, struggle, strive and feel negative emotions tied to your actions and results. You’ll feel like life is stacked against you.
I used to have this attitude that life had to be a struggle in order to get those things I wanted in life. So I pushed hard to achieve, but when I got to those things I thought I wanted and had fought so hard for I wasn’t very happy and felt disappointment in the end. I became depressed. Now I still set goals and work diligently toward them, but I am not so set on one path to get there and oftentimes an alternate path opens up that requires less effort and seems to flow. Also I’m not so tied to the outcomes off my efforts and enjoy the journey along the way to reach my goals.
Is life hard or is life beautiful? The energy in these statements is on opposite ends of the spectrum. When I say life is hard it feels heavy, painful, unwelcoming. But when I say life is beautiful. That feels light, airy, freeing.
The next time you find yourself saying that life is a hard or a battle or a struggle, catch yourself and say, Life is beautiful and watch your reality begin to change course.
Patricia Brooks is a life experiences coach, speaker, and the author of Growing Bold: How to Overcome Fear, Build Confidence, and Love the Life you Live. She is the host of the Discovering Courage Podcast where each week she explores how ordinary people have managed to live extraordinary lives. Patricia is currently living in France, pursuing her dreams.
Photo Credit: Hammer and Tusk