While we were away , I had an interaction with one of my kids.

Although it was with one of my kids this time, I have to say it really could be any of my kids, or my husband, or a friend, or myself, as it’s pretty universal.

We make things harder than they really need to be.

In this particular situation, I had asked my child to do something (I can’t even remember what now, and it’s not important), and they pushed back. It was a simple request, could have taken 2 seconds to do and then it would be over with, but instead they were pushing back, resisting and then it became a “thing” and you know the story…. Twenty minutes later there was anger, hurt feelings, frustration and distance.

Why, why, why?

I said to my child (and my other children that were around), “You know, there are really two ways to live your life: the hard way and the easy way”.

Now I know this seems weird when I am always saying “we do hard things”, but ‘m not talking about the things that we do. I’m talking about the way we do things. You can do hard things the easy way or the hard way.

I was working with a client about processing her emotions and we talked about the three ways you can approach feelings and emotions. As we were discussing them, I realized it fit right in to what I was trying to explain to my child.

The three ways:

1. Resist them  (push against them, deny their existence, run from them, avoid them).

You can resist everything, but that really makes your life much harder. You open up the doors to more contention, and everything seems so hard. You likely open yourself up to more drama too.

2. Try to cope with them in maladaptive ways (try to replace them with other strategies that are usually not helpful and even self destructive)

You can try to “cope” with things, but bad coping can turn into some behaviours which cause more problems. We don’t want to feel negative emotions (which are a fact of life) or deal with things so we choose other things to help us avoid or to feel better: over eating, over drinking, overworking, over sleeping, over gaming, addictions (substance, activities) etc.

3. Process them (feel them, accept them for what they are, talk about them)

Allowing yourself time to feel, grieve, be angry, be happy, be confident, be insecure, be sad etc.  Trying to accept it is what it is. Let it just happen. Acknowledge it’s existence. Talk to someone. Write about it. Sit with it.  Ask for help. Just do it. Let it go. Don’t overanalyze.

Sometimes this even takes a great deal of humility.

I think that in the short term, processing things seems harder. It seem uncomfortable. I know in the case of the situation with my child, it felt like “giving in”, or “being told what to do”. Sometimes it may feel like you are accepting things that you may not want to at that moment. But in the long term, it makes life much easier.

Resistance and maladaptive coping strategies may feel like much easier solutions initially. They may feel like they provide temporary relief, but really all they do is delay things, and often make our future lives more complicated. They are usually what creates more drama in our lives. And often we resist things from a place of pride and ego. “No one can tell me what to do”, “I’m my own person”, “I won’t be controlled”, “I will do what see fit”, Who does xyz think they are telling what to do”. You can do and say these things, but often, it just makes life more difficult for you (realizing of course that you really only control your own life regardless of what stand you are trying to take with others). It just is an exhausting and often lonely path to take.

The question to ask is: Am I making things easier for myself or harder?

Give yourself a bit a of a break (and a break to to others around you) and choose the easier way. Life is hard enough without building your own obstacles and road blocks that you need to go back and climb over.

Clean and Dirty pain