3 Tools to Combat Your Struggles

Dr. Andrew GardellaHuman beings love to compartmentalize everything. When we can put someone or something in a neatly labelled mental box, it seems to make us feel comfortable in some way. Worse still, we do it to ourselves as well. But by over labeling and defining our own personal traits, strengths and weaknesses, it can create difficulty and discomfort in changing.In the Access Consciousness® classes I teach, especially in Right Voice for You, I look to empower people to just be themselves, instead of being restricted by the labels they may have given themselves – or the ones they’ve been given by others. I see clients struggle with making a different choice because it deviates from their labels of themselves. If you have rose colored glasses on, everything is rosy. Our labels are the same way. The labels you have of you filter or shade how you see yourself and the world. They also create the invisible walls we struggle with when desiring to change.And it has been no different for me. I’ve always thought I wasn’t creative because I didn’t match my label of creative. My view on creative was “I don’t paint, draw, sing, or dance, so I’m not creative.” People would compliment me on how creative I was, and I would dismiss it. I saw being creative as an art thing and had nothing to do with creating anything else. And when it came time to create my business. It was a struggle. And it was a struggle with each project in my business. After enough struggling, I decided to use the tools I had available. Boy was I shocked to discover that I had labelled myself as not creative. And more shocked that by labeling myself as not creative, I was creating a struggle with growing my business. I realized I was more interested in maintaining my label and being comfortable with who I am than change how I saw myself. I was proving to myself that I was not creative with my struggle in creating my business. Once I realized had these labels, started seeing where I was creative, and acknowledged it, the struggle with the creation of my business and projects became much easier.

Here are three tools you can use to stop struggling with change and creation.

1. Ask yourself open-ended questions without forcing your brain to work out the answers. The point of asking a question is to get you to look from a different place and realize what you are doing that is creating the struggle for you. Two of my favorites are: 1. What am I proving with this? In my case, I was proving to myself that I wasn’t creative. If you can identify how you are labelling yourself, you can start to change it. 2. What else is possible here? Ask it when you are struggling. You don’t have to come up with an answer, just ask it and allow for a different possibility to show up. Struggle comes about in part because we do not think we have any other choices. It is either this or that, but that is not true. There are infinite ways to create a change.

2. Start to think about all the words you use to define yourself. Are they really true? Or did someone else give you that label? Sometimes a teacher or parent or work colleague can say something we take on board as a truth without question. And are they true in all circumstances? (most likely not) Ask yourself, ‘does this label or judgment really belong to me?’ And is it true? Are there any areas of your life where you are or are not that?

3. Embrace the discomfort. Discomfort isn’t bad. Remember we have the labels to make ourselves comfortable. When you are stepping out of how you have labelled yourself, it’s not comfortable because it is outside your comfort zone and what you have decided is true about you. So, when you have that sense of discomfort when you are working towards change, embrace it.

It is the labels and definitions we’ve given ourselves, that create the struggles in our lives. You do not have struggle, without a definition. And do not stop when struggle shows up. What if the struggle is just an indication of a label that does not work for you anymore? If we can get change them, we can change with ease, rather than struggle. We can open ourselves up to so much more.

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