When you’re facing a tough challenge, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed, frightened, and helpless. Even if you have made it through tough challenges before, you still might feel uncertain about your ability to pull it off again. You may find yourself frozen in fear, uncertain of your next step. Or you might do the opposite and start scrambling to find a solution.
While both of these reactions can be helpful at times depending on the circumstances, there is another approach that usually works much better, no matter the nature of the challenge.
The first thing that is often helpful is to shift your perspective of the challenge. When the challenge first appears, it may seem big and scary, or even threatening to your very well-being, which of course triggers a fearful reaction. But if you can pause for a moment, take a deep breath, and consider the challenge before you. Remind yourself that you can choose to view it in a different way.
You can choose to see it as a threat, or as a scary situation that you have no power to change, or you can choose to see it as an opportunity to test your strength, determination, and confidence in your own abilities. Even if you still feel uncertain about those abilities, at least acknowledging that there are multiple perspectives to consider can often help you to feel calmer.
Next, surrender to the existence of the challenge in your life. You may feel some initial resistance to that idea but remind yourself that surrender is not the same thing as defeat. The harder you fight against something, the more of your energy you give away to it, and it will often start to seem even scarier, stronger, and more prevalent in your life.
When you decide to stop fighting and simply surrender to the present reality with calm acceptance, you immediately open pathways for solutions to flow in. Surrendering does not mean resigning yourself to the problem or challenge, but rather withdrawing your energy from it. This alone can release massive amounts of resistance and shift your entire perspective in how you approach finding a solution.
From this inner state of calm detachment, you can then tap into your inner strength and creativity, which can yield many possible ways to navigate through or around the present challenge. Tapping into your inner strength is as simple as turning your attention inward and connecting with the light at your center. As you focus inward, you may feel a sense of warmth flooding through your body, or you might even see a mental image of brilliant light radiating from your center.
However you experience it, allow a sense of quiet strength to fill you. Remind yourself that you are never helpless, never lost, never truly stuck. Recognize that the challenge you are facing is nothing more than a momentary pause on your journey, and if you will simply accept it with patience and grace, you will draw forth the strength to not only bear it but overcome it with ease.
