Most of us are suffering from something. We’re suffering something in a relationship somewhere. Some of us are suffering physically. Some of us are suffering emotionally. There’s a lot of suffering in the world and people often ask me, “How do you deal with it?”
I think I have a unique approach, I would say, after having been through a lot in my life. I’ve been through car accidents, brain injuries, and broken nearly every bone, it feels like at this point in my life, from adventures and accidents I’ve had.
Maybe you know my stories. I’ve been through a lot physically and emotionally in my life, from the brain injury that left me in a challenged situation with such a deep concussion that I was struggling everyday to control my emotions, my motivation, and try to figure out how to heal properly and physically from the rest of the things that have happened to me.
I’ve also gone through some emotional suffering like anyone else from losing people, loss of love and of life.
We all go through things, but a lot of people when they say they’re suffering or they’re really challenged or hurt and angry, there’s a lot to it, but what’s the ultimate solution? No matter where we are, how do we break through that and overcome it?
I call it my war and peace model. My war and peace model is if you have a challenge or a problem, including suffering in your life, you have to go to war at it and you have to have peace about it.
Here’s what I mean by that. I had a friend recently who said, “Brendon I’m suffering in my marriage.”
I said, “What do you mean you’re suffering in your marriage?”
He said, “We’re not clicking. We’re not doing well. I don’t know what’s going on.”
I said tell me more about that.
He said, “We started going to counseling.”
I said, “Great, how’s that going?”
He says it’s not working. “We go to counseling and then we go home and we fight some more.”
I said, “What else are you doing?”
He says, “What do you mean?”
"What else are you doing?"
He said, “We’re going to counseling.”
I said, “Yeah I know, but what else are you doing?”
And therein lied his problem. And therein lies a lot of folk’s problem in overcoming things in their life.
They try one thing to solve it and that’s why they fail.Major challenges, major frustrations and major problems in our lives, demand multiple areas of attack.
It’s like when you go to war, you send in the planes, the ground troops and people from the flank and the front. You go at it from all sides trying to win.
So if you have a major challenge, problem or struggle in your life, you need to attack from all sides.
This guy, I was like, ”Hey, you know what, you need to go out and start interviewing couples who have been married for a long period of time. What were their secrets? What books are you reading? What are you reading online? Who are you connecting with who can mentor you and coach you through, besides the counselor? What are you doing specifically, activities, real things? How are you being more present? Tell me, what are all the strategies you’re putting into this game to win?”
He was like what?
I know that’s overwhelming to people, but come on. Are you really going to overcome your challenges if you don’t overwhelm them? You’re so overwhelmed with the suffering, the challenge and frustrations, but you need to start overwhelming those things with the number of areas that you’re hitting that baby.
I remember when I went bankrupt, I was like okay, I have this dream to write these books and to become a trainer. I’m going to try everything. I’m going to bust through this thing. I’m going to put every direction I can on this thing to move the needle financially in my life and then when I get one that hits, boom! I’m going to commit to that and work it. If something else isn’t working enough, then I’ll add another element, another strategy and stack all these strategies on until POW! I took that thing out.
I think that’s what we have to do. We have to overwhelm the very obstacles we have in our lives in order to obliterate them.
Now, if that sounds like way too much masculine energy for you that’s okay, because I said the strategy is called war and peace.
We also have to learn to be at peace with the struggles. We have to learn to be patient with them as well. We have to allow the struggle in our life.
I always say to people, honor the struggle, honor the suffering, honor the challenges, honor that deep dark frustration, those emotions that are negative and those things that really freak us out. Honor those things.
If you have struggle in your life, honor it.
Know that thing has been put before you by divine hand, in order to challenge you, in order to make you a better person, in order to make you more loving, in order to make you pay attention, in order to make you to honor and find the zest in life.
And, if you don’t believe in a divine hand, the cosmos or anything, at least look at it and say maybe this thing I could use to appreciate life even better.
If you can never obliterate that thing or fix it, at least be at peace with what it is. It’s like war and peace.
I lost my dad to acute myeloid leukemia in 2009, and from diagnosis to death was just 59 days, so we didn’t have a lot of time. One of the things I remember from that experience that I’m still and always amazed by was the peace that he had in the final weeks about his life going away. He accepted it. He fought what he could. He was a Marine, so believe me, he fought. He accepted as well. He knew he was doing his best. He was putting full play in force to overcome that, went through multiple chemos, multiple challenges, and everything else he could. As he was going through it, he was also at peace with it.
There’s a presence to being a warrior. You’ve heard the Peaceful Warrior concept. It’s like, you can have a presence and a peace to it. While you’re fighting, to know that maybe you can’t change the outcome. But you’re going to work your best towards it, and as you’re working your best towards it, you’re going to be okay with yourself and you’re going to honor that the struggle is okay.
That working through, being frustrated and challenged, scared or overwhelmed or freaked out, as you’re working through something, it’s okay.
Be at peace with it. Look at it and say, “This is the way it’s supposed to be right now. I’m trying to make it better, but as the world is right now I’m okay with it.”
To accept the world as it is, is a higher level of consciousness. Even as we seek to change it.
It doesn’t have to mean we approve of it. I’m not saying we have to approve of it. I’m definitely not saying we have to settle with it. But to accept it as it is, to have no negative attachment or baggage about the way the world is right now. It’s like no, no, it’s cool. Everything is good right now.
You don’t need anything else. Right now wherever you are, struggling through and suffering with things, I get it, it’s okay. Now, what are we going to try to do to improve it?
Asking those types of questions and finding that type of peace, as we work from every angle to improve our lives, that makes us smarter. That makes us more likely to break through. And that’s the journey that I hope we can all take together as we do face those inevitable struggles, those inevitable sufferings and challenges of life.
To meet them with that style of grace and positive attitude, that style of presence and consciousness, what more could we ask from living the charged life?
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