Use the difficult – the cheat code to life

“Hey, long time no see! How you doing?”
“Well, it’s December, it’s always dark when I go to work and when I come back from work, I’m already broke and I haven’t even bought presents yet, my back hurts, I just got my period, this is the third month in a row where I tell myself it’s just a busy time at work and it will pass soon, and I can’t sleep at night.”
“Oh boy, lucky you!”

Ok, fine, that might be an exaggeration. But to the yogi, challenges are gifts.
You won’t move until your comfort zone gets cramped, and you won’t learn unless you listen to new teachers.
The last few weeks have been… gifts.
The difficult will keep happening, whether you like it or not. What you do have control over is your attitude to it. The Buddhists use the difficult as a practice.

This situation at work is dragging on for weeks
What a wonderful opportunity to build out patience. People pay a lot of money and get dropped into jungles to learn these skills. Here I am, free ticket to challenge myself, if I only cash it in.
Please God give me one good night of sleep
If I can practice compassion and discipline now, tired and stressed, I can practice it anytime, even at the time of death when it is most important. Can I give myself the grace to try out every coping mechanism instead of losing myself to drugs or social media? Can I sit with the uncomfortable?
I can’t stop worrying, my thoughts are constantly pingponging around
My dear old friend anxiety. What a blessing that I almost didn’t recognise you anymore. The mind is the ocean, and thoughts but the current. If I can’t quite swim yet, I can at least keep my head over water. I am not my thoughts. I am what observes anxiety.

A different perspective does not mean closing your eyes.
It does not mean negating your feelings, your truth. It is not spiritual bypassing.
It is not taking sadness, and naming it happiness.
It is going beyond feelings altogether.
If I chase what is comfortable, I will always be repulsed by the uncomfortable.
If I yearn for what is familiar, I will never discover what I am due.
It is not only using the difficult, it is choosing to see opportunity in everything, good and bad, easy or hard. It is seeing connection instead of separation.

And when I started doing that, my sore back motivated me to exercise again. My insomnia got me back into meditation. My stress at work allowed me to finally enact boundaries. My anxiety gave me empathy. December is no longer and endless string of darkness, but simply shadows. And shadows are always a consequence of light.