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132. Declaring War · Impact Ready

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  Welcome to Impact Ready, a show dedicated to helping you elevate
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  your impact in the world. I'm Steph Safra, your host.
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  Let's explore the power of showing up with intention and
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  energy each day. This is for those who seek to
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  make life truly meaningful. Get ready for impact.
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  Hi team, Hope you're having an awesome week.
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  Thanks for listening today. In this podcast, the Impact
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  Ready podcast, we always talk about the idea of struggle,
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  challenge, stress, pain. We talk about that a lot in this
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  podcast. It's a very well acknowledged
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  part of life that we address because it does have an
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  influence on the impact that we have.
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  So we talk about it, and I actually think that all of those
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  things can serve us well in so many ways because they show us
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  the contrast between the dark and the light, the good and the
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  bad, the ease and the hardship. And when we go through struggle
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  or challenge or stress, it lets us know what beauty is because
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  we've experienced some type of ugliness in the world.
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  It's the ups and downs that make life worth living.
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  You know, Nobody wants to live a stagnant, boring life.
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  I often ask my coaching clients, do you want to ride the roller
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  coaster at the theme park or do you want to be on the merry go
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  round for the rest of your life? Just going around and round,
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  almost every single one of them says I want to live the roller
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  coaster life. So I think that says something
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  about us as humans. But I've been thinking a lot
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  about how we approach hardship in our lives, probably because
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  I've been navigating my own type of hardship, going through
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  breast cancer treatment and, and also people have actually been
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  sharing a lot of their hardship with me through cards, through
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  stories, which has actually been a huge honor.
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  But it has me thinking, and what I'm thinking about is how often
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  we declare war on things in our life.
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  The things that we don't like, the things that we perceive to
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  be suffering or struggle, the things that we want to fight
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  off, we declare war on these things, whether it's outwardly
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  or just inwardly, mentally, emotionally.
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  And it has me asking the question, because I've been
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  thinking about this a lot, what precisely are we declaring war
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  on? Is it just us being presumptuous
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  humans thinking that it's our job to be the warrior and to
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  come up and declare war on everything?
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  Or are we actually having an impact when it comes to
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  declaring war on these types of things?
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  There is always resistance when we encounter something that we
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  don't want to face. And while I truly believe that
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  there is nobility in being a warrior, it's only one way to
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  approach things. It's one way where we view the
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  struggle or the challenge as an enemy.
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  And I see the merit in that. I see the necessity in that in
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  certain situations. But I'm thinking about this and
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  I'm understanding there is another way that we could
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  embrace all of these things that happen in our life.
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  What if we did it differently? What if we totally claimed the
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  struggle or the hardship and live the experience as fully as
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  we could? Meaning, what if we talked about
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  it and we looked for the meaning in it?
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  What if we fully experienced the pain, the struggle, and we're
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  open to the possibility that the suffering or the challenge
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  that's in front of us was actually something that could
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  lead to more wisdom? What if we did things
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  differently? What if it wasn't declaring war,
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  but it was full acceptance of the thing that is here in front
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  of us now? Why would we do this?
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  I think we would do this because it aligns more with this idea of
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  radical ownership and personal responsibility and acceptance
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  and releasing resistance so that we could ultimately get to
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  deeper peace and a quicker resolution and all of these
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  things. When you exercise radical
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  ownership and personal responsibility and you practice
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  acceptance, all of those things gives you access to solutions
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  instead of pushing it away and making whatever the
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  circumstances are the problem or the thing to declare war on.
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  We as a culture, as a United States, often declare war on
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  things. We have the war on drugs, we
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  have the War on Terror. There's a war on poverty.
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  And when I'm looking at these movements, it's a very specific
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  energy, the war on all these things.
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  And historically, these wars haven't yielded the best
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  success. We have terrible drug problems
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  in the United States. There's a tremendous amount of
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  terrorism in the world. And then looking at our own
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  United States, in the situation with poverty right now, I don't
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  think we're winning that war. And it begs the question, is
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  this approach effective? When we're thinking about these
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  movements? We also talk about the analogy
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  of war in healthcare all the time, the war on cancer.
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  In this process of breast cancer treatment that I've been going
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  through, I've noticed so much the language that people use
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  when they're talking about me or referencing my treatment.
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  There's so much battle jargon, so much used.
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  They're talking about blasting the cancer and blowing it away
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  and annihilating it and all these terms.
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  And then of course, the language around like F cancer, it's
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  everywhere. It's so aggressive.
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  There's so much of like F cancer and F this.
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  And it's funny because my brain is just lighting up.
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  You can imagine I'm thinking about the language of your life
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  and how words have power. And I'm just wondering like, to
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  what end is this helpful? Is this, is this making a
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  difference? Is this actually a healing
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  situation? I also have this part of my
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  brain that goes to my holistic medicine background, Chinese
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  medicine and acupuncture, that says any disease process or
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  illness is really about the body being out of harmony.
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  And so trying to navigate the dissonance that happens when I
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  contrast a body out of balance with a body that needs to be
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  attacked with top level artillery or something like
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  that, it's very hard for me to make sense of.
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  And I think that's the point of this discussion is there are so
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  many ways to look at any situation.
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  We can choose to focus on the resistance to something, or we
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  can focus on the acceptance of something.
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  When it comes to resistance, I recognize that there is a strong
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  rejection of struggle and pain. Trust me, it's really only been
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  in the last seven or eight years that I've had a lot of
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  experience with the acceptance of pain and struggle in the way
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  that I'm trying to coach my clients through.
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  Historically, I've been the one who's pushing it away and
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  resisting it, and I'm the one who says, let's beat this, let's
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  declare war on it. I very much can relate to that
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  feeling and that sentiment, and often this is how people respond
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  to pain in the moment. There's an author, Stephen Cope,
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  He wrote The Great Work of Your Life, and he talks about there
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  being two sides to this type of resistance. 1 is grasping and 1
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  he describes as a version, and they're like two sides to a
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  coin. Grasping.
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  The grasping side of me would say, I wish that things were
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  different. I wish that things look like
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  this experience over here. I'm feeling a lack and a
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  scarcity of something that I want, and so I'm grasping for
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  it. So there's that side of the
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  resistance. And this is really easy to
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  relate to for anybody who's had an illness or an injury.
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  That grasping sensation is, you know, you look out in the world
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  and you see people socializing or they're out there enjoying
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  their summer, they're traveling, they're living their big lives.
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  You definitely feel that sense of grasping.
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  My mind is grasping for a different experience than what
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  I'm having now, which is, you know, treatment or body aches or
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  having to rest more than I like to do.
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  So that's one side. And then on the flip side of
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  that coin, Steven Cope talks about aversion.
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  There's an aversion to something.
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  And my mind might say, I hate the way things are right now.
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  I don't like how unpleasant this is.
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  Like, Get Me Out of here. I'm a I'm averse to this.
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  And aversion has the mind pushing away things that are
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  unpleasant or uncomfortable, which is something we can all
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  very much relate to. And when we think about this
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  idea of declaring war on something, I'm declaring war on
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  this process of getting rid of an illness or getting out of
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  disease. I'm in a constant state of
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  either grasping or aversion, flipping back and forth between
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  the two like, Oh my God, why can't I have that experience
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  over there? I'm longing for that.
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  And then back to the other one, a version where I say I wish I
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  didn't have to do this. I don't want to have to be in
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  this situation. And even just saying all of that
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  stuff out loud, I'm left with this heavy feeling, this low
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  frequency, heavy feeling of lack and scarcity and wishing for a
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  different reality, which feels bad because really all of it is
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  a rejection of what is here now, in this moment.
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  It's resistance. And in the past six months, I've
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  been grappling with the idea of resistance a lot.
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  Testing it, toying with it, experimenting with how quickly I
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  can release it, getting familiar with the feeling of it in a way
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  that I've never done in my life, I've never really had to do in
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  my life. And it's just been so
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  interesting. Because here's the thing, what I
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  realized is that being at war was something is actually the
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  stealer of my peace and my joy and my presence.
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  It shifts my mindset into this place where everything is
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  struggle or suffering. It's just like, you know, when
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  somebody says I had a horrible year last year, when in reality
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  it was actually a mix of good and bad and neutral moments.
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  There's no way that the entire year was really bad, but we can
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  get so focused on the bad. Just as we are focused on the
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  struggling or the suffering, we get focused on the war, the war
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  that we've declared, on the circumstances at hand.
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  And it really makes me remember that no experience is all bad.
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  No circumstances are all bad. They're all a mix of good and
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  neutral and subpar or painful moments.
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  It's a mixed bag. And so to declare war on
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  something in your life is to very distinctly choose to focus
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  on the struggle. Sylvia Borstein says pain is
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  inevitable, suffering is optional.
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  And I think about that a lot. It very much strikes me pain is
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  inevitable, suffering is optional.
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  And it means we all face the hard stuff like we talk about so
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  often in this podcast. But it doesn't have to become
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  our entire story. We can choose something
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  different. We can choose to move through
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  it. We don't have to declare war on
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  it and get lost in the pain and the suffering.
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  We can accept what is here now and take the necessary action.
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  And that's the key. So many people think if they
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  don't declare war, then they're not being proactive enough,
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  they're not being aggressive enough, they're not taking
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  enough action. And that couldn't be further
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  from the truth. Because when you are in
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  acceptance and you are releasing resistance, you actually get to
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  that higher frequency where you were able to take more action in
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  your life and have a better impact on your people, on your
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  community, on the things that you want to create in your own
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  life. So I challenge you this week to
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  think about the things that you're facing, the struggles,
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  the pains, the challenges, and ask yourself, am I declaring war
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  on these things? Have I inadvertently told myself
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  that I'm going to take up arms and battle against these things
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  without necessarily being conscious of it?
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  And do I really want to be doing that?
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  Do I want to take that route? Or perhaps is this other route
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  where I'm releasing resistance and I'm practicing acceptance so
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  I can get to solutions, is that maybe going to be a better path
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  for me with this specific situation?
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  It's worth an ask. It's worth examining.
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  I always think questioning our beliefs and what we think is the
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  best path is a good way to really understand what the best
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  path is. So that's all for this week.
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  I challenge you to think about what you're declaring war on.
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  Thank you for being here and for listening.
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  And as always, thank you for being ready to Impact.
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  Thanks for listening to Impact Ready.
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  I hope today's episode inspired you to own your impact and
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  recognize that you are powerful. By elevating our energy and
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  awareness, we can create exponential change in this life.
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  If you enjoyed today's insights, share them with a friend and
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  subscribe to the show for more. I truly appreciate you.
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  Thanks again for being here.