135: Creating a Life of Struggle
This episode is really personal of my own journey with my own life. Not like any of the others aren’t, because everything I share here is because I’ve lived it and know it and want to help you grow and learn how to feel and process all of the emotions you have.
Before we talk about that, I’m so pumped. Relief in Grief is coming again, on April 20th- 22nd. This is my free 3 day workshop that is a safe space to learn, grow, and grieve for grieving mothers. This has previously been a paid workshop, but I decided to do this one for free, and we’ll see what I do in the future, so come join us! It’s such an amazing time we have together, so put it in your calendar and keep an eye out for when registration opens so that you don’t miss it! Here is a previous mom’s experience of her takeaway from the workshop
“I was so impressed with Megan’s empathic and understanding nature. She made me feel like I was being listened to and I felt like I was being heard, That was very important to me, 5 months into my grief journey. The tools and strategies that Megan taught in the group are already proving helpful and effective. “
You seriously don’t want to miss this, so make sure you join as soon as registration opens!
So today I wanted to talk about struggle and making things harder for yourself. How I made suffering a way of life for myself, and maybe you are too.
I once was at a get-together with some ladies, and I was telling them that my word for the year was ease, because I created so much struggle in my life for myself, that I was going to always say to myself “let it be easy” and ask myself, how can I let this be easy? How can I make this easier for myself?
When I told the group of ladies that, one of them asked me, how in the world did you even know that you create suffering in your life? How did you become aware of that. And I didn’t really know how to answer that, because I’m always curious and diving into my own emotional experiences, I learned that I have and had a programming of suffering.
I’ve learned that if I don’t feel chaos inside of me, I create it, because maybe I couldn’t handle being alone with myself, or I couldn’t handle the feeling of calm or peace because I didn’t know how to be with it. I’m have not completely let go of this struggle, I’m still working through it now energetically and with a coach. Maybe it’s something I will deal with my whole life, maybe not.
I hope by sharing, that you can learn and know that there are many layers to each of us in our lives, and we are all continually learning. Sometimes you need to step back and take a break, but when you are doing the work, it’s lifelong. We never get to a place of perfection. And that’s okay, it’s part of the journey.
So- I’ll do the best I can to share with you how I realized that I was living from a place of suffering or struggle.
I teach inside of the Life After Child Loss Program, which you can go through when you join Grieving Moms Haven, that everything in our lives starts with our identity and the lens in which we view the world. If you imagine that you have a pair of glasses and you put them on, you are looking through the lens of your life of your experiences and who you believe you are and what you believe to be true about yourself.
So maybe you have a lens of struggle. Maybe you have a lens of guilt. Maybe you have a lens of victimhood or everything always goes wrong for me. Maybe you have a lens that everyone has it better than you, and I can’t make anything better. Maybe your lens is nobody cares about me, or people only care about me if I’m struggling or suffering.
What is your lens in which you are viewing your grief and your life? It’s helpful to notice this lens, because from that lens, you have an experience and thoughts about that experience that changes depending on the lens in which you look through the world.
Here’s a few beliefs I’ve had that I noticed. These might seem like really silly little examples, but this is the lens in which I viewed and probably still do sometimes view the world. A place of struggle, difficulty, and creating suffering.
One- I was having a conversation with someone and they said something about buying an electric bike. I couldn’t believe that anyone would want to buy an electric bike, because for me it defeated the purpose of biking. He said that he was getting older and it made it easier. Easier? I thought? Why would you want to make anything easier? Shouldn’t everything physically be hard?
Um… why would you not want to make something easier for yourself?
Another one- Every Time we’ve visited or gone somewhere, and I was thinking what food I should bring,I felt like I needed to make something from scratch, I needed to make the fanciest, most beautiful, yummiest dessert or meal. I put so much pressure on myself to create the best. And I realized underneath it I was trying to show my worth through the effort I put into it. Do you know how I realized this? Because i judged other people who just bought a bag of popcorn, or chocolate. Or the people who just wanted to bring drinks. Because in my mind, they didn’t have to put any effort into it. They didn’t have to struggle and make something intricate. When I realized I was judging them, I realized that I was judging myself, and I wouldn't let myself buy something from the store because I thought it made me lazy, or taking the easier route, and I always got to do the harder route.
So you know what those people who bought things from the store gave me? They gave me the gift of giving myself permission to buy something from the store without feeling guilt. The permission to take an easier route because it felt lighter. It made the whole experience of visiting and getting together with others so much easier because I didn’t have to stress about what I was making or if I had the time to make something. I just bought something and I didn’t have to make it any harder than it needed to be.
I also realized this through doing this work in grief. I was making everything more complicated, I was creating a business, and a community, and a place for moms to come a struggle. I made EVERYTHING harder than it needed to be. Because I needed to make everything a struggle.
So- how do you let go of the struggle? You can use the question like I have- how can I make it easy? What can I let go of?
And you know what’s very interesting. A few people can experience the same exact situation, and one can create struggle by how they are thinking about it, the pressure they put on themselves, and another can do it with ease, just by the way they are thinking about it. Like I was talking about with the lens, they change their lens, and so then they can change their thoughts, and from there they change their whole perspective on what they are experiencing.
Another way to notice, where in your life do you have a lot of stress, a lot of anxiety, and maybe anger where you get frustrated easily. Notice if there are any thoughts or beliefs that you can let go of. Maybe a way you think things need to be, but do they really need to be that way? Like I believed I only showed I cared if I put a lot of work and effort into it. Is that true? Does it really need to be that way?
What if you could let go of that belief and can experience the same thing with calm, and ease.
It’s absolutely life changing when you can let go of the struggle.
Are you making your life more of a struggle because your child died? Don’t get me wrong when I say this, because your child or baby dying is the most difficult thing you can go through. It’s intense and emotional and everything. But are you adding struggle on top of it?
Working with a mom recently we were talking about how guilt can eat you up inside. And how to notice if you have the lens of guilt. Say you are trying everything to help yourself feel better. You do certain things to help yourself, you are doing all the things, but at the base of all the things you are doing you are looking through a lens of guilt. So no matter what you do, what other people say, no matter how others try to help you, you won’t believe them because you can’t see anything else because this lens of guilt is at the base of everything.
So in order to begin letting go of that struggle and suffering, you have to change the lens in which you are looking through. Because when you are searching for reasons to feel guilty, I promise you will have no problem finding reasons. Not because it’s actually your fault, but because it’s easy to find things to support your truth that you are holding on to right now.
Wow- this is a deep episode. It’s a lot I know. As I constantly say, this is a practice. This is not something you do and you are done. THis is a way of life, and being, where you allow yourself to let go of struggle, and open up to ease. How can you make things easier on yourself, mentally, emotionally, and find a place of ease, even inside of grief.
My heart is always with you, remember that each wave you ride, you are building your capacity, and you’ve ridden every wave of grief so far, look how far you’ve come when you’ve thought it impossible to do so. You are amazing. You have the ability and capacity inside of you to keep going. I hope you can feel it through this microphone how much I’m rooting for you, and how much hope I’m holding for you.
If you have liked this episode or any of the other episodes, make sure you join Relief in Grief when it opens up, because it’s more of this on a whole other level.
Until next week my friend, take care.
Make sure you check out my free grief workshops I’m hosting over on www.meganhillukka.com. These workshops will help you learn how to process the emotions, and deal with the anxiety that child/baby loss brings into your life.
If you like this podcast, and found it helpful, I want to invite you come check out Grieving Moms Haven, my monthly community for Grieving moms, where you can learn positive coping mechanisms, find a safe space with others who understand, and learn life long skills that support you as you learn how to carry this weight of grief in your life.
There are group coaching calls where we do guided meditations, tapping meditations, breathwork, and just talk, knowing that everyone in the group is also walking the path of child loss
You can come check out Grieving Moms Haven at www.grievingmomshaven.com
