Quote: “The genuine desires for more ease and flow are also asking for more difficult experiences. Much like the desire to see things more clearly, you’re asking for life to show you… where you don’t see things clearly, so you can clarify the confusion and misunderstanding.”
I usually write this Sunday letter on Thursday, with a grace period until Saturday to wrap things up. However, right now, I’m writing this on Sunday morning, the day of delivery. In fact, I already wrote 70% of the Sunday letter, but Friday came, and I ran into a painful “personal life” struggle, and I simply could not finish my original draft; I completely lost interest in the subject I was writing about. Furthermore, I lost interest in work altogether.
I had to set work aside for a couple of days and address some things, and have some difficult conversations within myself and another person.
Now, my inspiration has taken a different turn for this Sunday letter. I’m not totally sure how I’m going to relate this to business and being a solopreneur, but since all things seem to interweave together, I’m sure to find some coherent pointer toward growing in life and business.
There’s a part of me that wishes life and business could be easier sometimes. Sure, there are things we can do, learn, and open up to that allow for more ease and flow; however, those discoveries only come by passing through difficult moments. It seems the desire for an easier life can be both a blessing and a curse.
A blessing because maybe it motivates us to see things differently. Perhaps it inspires us to take an honest account of our difficulties and see how we are making it more difficult than it needs to be.
A curse because this desire can easily become an avoidant strategy from facing the hard realities of life, and the hard reality of dealing with our internal landscape. This desire for ease and flow can easily lead us to “checking out” and just hoping things will get better.
This can be doubly challenging when you have a collection of cute spiritual phrases that can easily be used to bypass the deeper reality of your experience. It truly is remarkable how the mind can strategically avoid what we fear, avoid being honest with ourselves, by crafting stories that seem to help us hide from the raw intensity of our humanness.
This is something to be vigilant to, where the mind (or our ego) is genuinely trying to protect us, but it’s doing so by way of avoiding what is fearful. Or, avoiding anything that might threaten the worldview that gives us a sense of security and stability. This attempt to protect us, however sweet it might be, is actually quite damaging as it relates to making meaningful progress in areas we also desire to grow in.
It reminds me of where we “make excuses” for our behavior, our non-action, or our failures which are not reflective of our conscious ability to learn and grow.
Easy and Hard are two sides of a coin, two ends of a polarity that ultimately go together. Wanting what is easy without also embracing what is hard will never allow you to connect with a genuine ease and flow. Wanting some experience of success, without also embracing the experience of failure (a willingness to fail), means that success can never become a reality.
In fact, the genuine desires for more ease and flow are also asking for more difficult experiences. Much like the desire to see things more clearly, you’re asking for life to show you… where you don’t see things clearly, so you can clarify the confusion and misunderstanding.
Seeing where you don’t see things clearly brings about a difficulty that exposes your insecurity and strips away the falsehoods we are hiding behind. This, clearly, is not designed to be a pleasant experience. The design is asking you to let go and expose yourself in all manner of uncomfortable ways. I find it super interesting how I get the opposite of what I want, as a means of connecting more deeply with what I want.
The conclusion I come to is that whatever difficulty I encounter, something in me is asking for this difficulty. It doesn’t matter how much I think (or the mind thinks) I don’t want it. If it’s showing, then something in me is looking to go through this, so I might connect more deeply with what I soulfully crave. This attitude creates a space of openness within me to actually look at the experience, rather than avoiding it or trying to hide from it.
Growing a business or being a solopreneur, from my perspective, is no different from growing a relationship or growing as a human being. It’s an optional path I choose to take that serves the underlying opportunity to see myself, others, and life more clearly. In all chosen paths, we will encounter the things we would rather not see so that we might see things more clearly.
Naturally, the more conscious you are about your chosen path, as in, it’s you choosing and not someone else (or fear) choosing for you, then you’re more inclined to embrace the hardship and challenges. Much like “genuinely” loving someone in a relationship, which is (by the way) quite different from the fear of being alone, the genuine love is the glue that carries you through hard times and helps you grow.
If we are motivated by the opinions of others or by fear, then it’s like we show up with an attitude of avoidance, hoping to… just make it through until the end. There’s not much growth there. What you’ll find is a continual cycle of self-abandonment as you become the prisoner to something (or someone) that doesn’t have your best interests at heart.
The difficult conversation waiting to be had is actually a form of deep self-honesty about my fears and insecurities that are avoiding the hard things. You see, on the surface, I’m making excuses and blaming other people, or blaming society, or blaming life as a whole. I’m proclaiming that life is hard because of something ‘out there.’ This is only helping me hide from where the real difficulty is, which is my insecurity and fears which are only there because I don’t see things clearly; because I’m hiding from the “hard things.”
It’s so grossly obvious that this is the difference between people who make meaningful progress in life and business and those who just end up making excuses their whole life. It’s so grossly obvious that this is where my lack of progress has always come from. In seeing that, it inspires me in to a deeper self-honesty and a willingness to have difficult conversations. I mean, what’s the alternative? Keep hiding and not growing? Keep hiding and pushing away what I’m actually attempting to connect with? As if I don’t already know where that is going to lead.
Need more support on your journey?
I’m offering one-time quick consultations to figure out your next step and also to optionally explore in what ways (if any) I might be able to support you more directly in making meaningful progress.
Answer these three questions:
- Where are you?
- Where would you like to be?
- And, what seems to be in the way right now?
Then, schedule a time to connect with me, and we will figure out what should be the priority and focus for you to truly move forward.
Sending you a supportive cosmic hug
