“I just want an easy life”
Don’t we all? I’ve never come into contact with someone who says, “I purposely make my life hard because I love it.” But like most things in life, it’s not that binary. It’s not a case of ‘their life is easy’ or ‘my life is hard’. It’s a spectrum and we’re all trying to figure out which bits we can tolerate. The good news is that there’s comfort, understanding and satisfaction to be found within the spectrum. Somewhere in between easy and hard.
I spent most of my life avoiding the really hard stuff so this is a look at some of the tools, skills and insights I’ve picked up in the pursuit of comfort, understanding and satisfaction.
What does, ‘an easy life’ mean to you? Take a moment to think about it for a second.
Which parts do you want to be easy?
Which areas do you want to avoid hardship?
Are those desires realistic?
For example, I want to avoid hardship in my relationships. Heartbreak sucks and I’d like to never have to go through it again, thank you very much. And difficult conversations with my loved ones require confrontation, which I find incredibly difficult. It’s the look on the other person’s face and it gets me every time. Oof.
But if I avoid the hard stuff in my marriage or my friendships then I’m MORE likely to experience heartbreak at some point. The un-saids mount up, the resentment grows, the subtle differences and annoyances turn into caverns between us, until you wake up one day and there’s no point being together. Yuk! So the little bits of hard conversation prove to be worth it in the long-run. We both learn to pick our battles and work out which bits of the relationship are our non-negotiables (we have to discuss it and find a common ground), which bits are a nice-to-have (we might bring it up and shine a light on it once or twice, but one or both us can live with it), and which stuff we can live with (there’s no need to nit-pick or nag). So it turns out, we can’t avoid hardship if we want to have fulfilling, connected relationships. It’s just not realistic. But we do get to (mostly) choose the people we surround ourselves with and how far down that hard road we’re willing to travel for them and with them.
Which part do I want to be easy?
For me, the easy part of my life needs to be my morning routine. It sets the tone for the rest of my day so as much as possible I’ve cultivated the habits to make my journey into each day steady and pleasant. No phone within 2 hours of waking up, a glass of water by the bed, a cup of decaf tea once I’ve properly woken up, and a lovely warm shower to ease me in, followed by the last 5 seconds (3 breaths) of freezing water to really get me going. In which bit of your day, week, month or existence do you want to create some friction-free living?
Life has ups and downs
There’s a difference between cultivating ease – creating habits and goals which move you toward the nice stuff – and avoiding hard. One universal truth is that life provides ups and downs, and whilst we can do our best to design great lives for ourselves, we cannot prevent crap happening and blind-siding us on a random Tuesday afternoon. I’m talking about losing a loved one, getting in an accident, making a mistake, raging hormones, flunking an exam because you revised the wrong stuff. Massive stuff and not-so-massive stuff. But it all feels rubbish. External factors that create internal turbulence are a fact of life. The thing I’ve noticed about the most fulfilled, satisfied and comfortable people is how they react to those experiences. They don’t have a super power at avoiding them, but they do have excellent coping mechanism for ‘moving through’ them.
The most important thing to know is that these people see each external influence as an opportunity to learn or find gratitude. Yes, it’s hideous when someone we love dies. We get to acknowledge that pain AND we get to be grateful for all the wonderful experiences we shared. Yes, it sucks when we fail a test, especially if we worked hard. We get to acknowledge our efforts AND learn from the mistakes so we don’t make them again.
Avoiding Drama
We all have a different tolerance for ‘drama’. Some people ignore it completely. They put on a brave face and distract themselves with getting stuff done. It’s a remarkably efficient, Terribly British, response and one I’ve mastered over the years. In fact, my baby daughter had an allergic reaction the other day and as I was discussing it with a friend my response was, “I’m not sure whether I handled it really well or if I’ve just disassociated from the whole thing.” Choosing to ignore our emotions is far easier than leaning into them. But we risk them mounting up over time. Imagine each uncomfortable experience is a banana peel on the road. If we distract ourselves, the banana peel stays where it is and over time, more and more banana peels are on the road in front of us until we can’t help but fall flat on our face. Or we’re so busy trying to avoid all the banana peels that we walk into a lamp post. If we learn to accept and process the feelings, the banana peel disappears and our path is clear.
To accept and process feelings we have to take time for ourselves. To sit quietly and think about what’s happened. To ask, ‘how do I feel about this?’ ‘Can I feel the experience in my body somewhere?’ ‘What emotions come up as I think about what just happened?’ This way, we’re giving ourselves space to process, making a conscious choice to look at the hard thing and learn from it, accept it, take action, seek help – whatever’s necessary to avoid avoiding it. Then have a glass of water, just because it’s good for you 🙂
The other choice we get to make when there’s Drama is to not embody other people’s. Have you ever experienced someone in a heightened state? Perhaps their girlfriend or boyfriend broke up with them, perhaps they flunked an exam, maybe their pet died or worse. As tribal mammals we are hard wired to mirror those emotions and show that we see the other person by getting worked up on their behalf. If you’ve ever seen a group of monkeys getting hectic because one monkey kicked off, you’ll know what I’m talking about. But now that we have language it doesn’t actually help anyone. Instead, you can show compassion for your loved one without needing to embody their stress. A good way to start is by repeating back to them the key parts of what they’ve said. That way the person feels heard and understood. “I hear you. I know you really liked your girlfriend. I’m so sorry that it’s over. Is there anything you need right now?” You’re showing up for the people you love but you’re not taking responsibility or ownership of their emotions.
It’s important to note here that we all find this stuff different to enact because we have different sized emotions. Some people get labelled ‘sensitive’ because they feel things very strongly and therefore need more time and space to process them. Just like working out which parts of your life you’d like to be easy, it’s worth finding out how best to process big feelings, and that comes with experience and practice.
These are just a few tips to get you started, but if you’d like to figure out more personalised strategies, drop me a line or check out the webinar series, moving From Fear to Fulfilment. Learn about how it serves our brain development to have hard times and why parents might want to reconsider protecting and rescuing their offspring from difficult and challenging situations.