Monday, March 5, 2012

"That which does not kill us makes us stronger"

We are all familiar with the above quote by Friedrich Nietzsche.
Yes, we all kind of believe that, don't we? Well, at least I do. The quote itself makes me feel pretty good about myself. Thinking through the words, makes me feel more at ease travelling through challenges of life. And the word 'stronger' makes me feel powerful...

But yet on occasion, I think to myself: 'What the...?'
How strong do some of us have to be? How strong will I be by the end of my life? What if I'm now content as I am, strong enough, that's it, finished, all done and dusted... ?!?! I need no more!

Unfortunately life doesn't work that way. There is no remote control to press 'pause', not even for a moment. Or perhaps there is, and that 'pause' button is actually the 'mindfulness meditation'? The time we take to just sit still for half an hour or so and do absolutely nothing. Pause. In the present moment. Completely in the now. Nowhere else. 
At some points over the past year, I have found myself in that present, peaceful state quite often. It feels so amazing it's addictive.
But yet, more often than not, I find myself stuck in my busy state of mind, caught up in thoughts and with the new learned belief of 'embracing' it all, find myself slightly stressed out when something unpleasant happens and I can't really embrace it. It might make me stronger, yes, but it doesn't mean I have to embrace it.

Today, while talking to my counsellor (I should really call her my mentor instead), I realised I have been putting too much pressure on myself for trying to embrace every single moment of my life. 'Embracing' is a very powerful word and although positive, it can easily turn into negative if you find it difficult to embrace a particular situation that happens. It can cause quite a bit of stress when you are not honest with your emotions towards the circumstance. At least in my case.
I realised earlier today, I don't want to embrace unpleasant things anymore. I am accepting them though. In fact, I've learned to accept everything that came my way so far.
From now on, rather than embracing, I will just BE with it. Be, with whatever comes my way, good, bad, nice, sad, happy, exciting, horrible, annoying, irritating, or whatever else there is...

So back to the quote by Friedrich Nietzsche. Yes, great, I am strong, because I am still alive after numerous challenges of my life that could have killed me. But, how strong do I really need to become? Or better, how strong do I want to be? What if I feel I am now strong enough? Can I ask life to stop throwing the 'life threatenning' challenges at me? Please?!?!

How about you? How strong are you?