#ThisStruggleIsReal

Welcome! Thank you for coming to my blog. I appreciate you taking the time to read what I have written. Perhaps you will share some of your thoughts inspired by what is here in the comments below.

As some of you may remember from a post I made a few weeks ago I'm listening to audiobooks by Tony Robbins.

In the latest chapter of Giant Steps: Small Challenges To Make A Big Difference he challenged me to take the 10-day challenge. His challenge is to always be in a positive, problem-solving attitude.

Today my eldest daughter introduced me to a hashtag she and her friends are using, #ThisStruggleIsReal.

My last post was on #DreamingBig which I've admitted is a challenge for me.

So all of this comes to together in my mind like a nice stew, the flavors mixing together over a slow heat -- the heat of life and living with intention.

What I'm left with is finding how all of these hashtags come together to make a great soup, #StayPositive #ThisStruggleIsReal #DreamBig.

or am I suffering from #TooManyHashTags?

At first they appear as if this soup won’t work. How can they all be true at once? But then I had the one ingredient I seem to be missing too much in my life, #Hope.

With this final ingredient my soup is starting to smell "AWESOME!"

Keeping positive is a challenge to my critical, pragmatic thinking engine. Dreaming Big is a challenge to my critical, pragmatic thinking engine. Both are self-created obstacles. Yet at the same time, #ThisStruggleIsReal for me. When I try to force myself into thinking that my self-created obstacles should be nothing to overcome, when I discount the value this thinking engine has provided me in my life, when I try to force changes to behavior while still holding onto the beliefs of a lifetime, and when I act like what I've done and been in the past has not served me well, my mind starts to break into warring factions. Self-doubt is born from the confusion that is manifest.

This is when hope pulls me from the confusion. Hope to me is the energy of acceptance and patience. Hope brings calmness to my life and gives me a moment to pause. Hope reminds me that all will be for my highest and best. Hope is trust that my future self will find how all of these ingredients do in fact come together in what can only be called Magnifique.

I'm reminded of something I heard Amma once say when she was offering advice to someone, "This of course is easy for me to say as my tongue has no bones."

I took from that statement that even though her direction was clear and obvious she understood that for the person, #ThisStruggleIsReal. If Amma can have patience and understanding for those who struggle from what are obvious, self-induced issues then I can too.

This is my struggle. The struggle to remain positive when looking at how in my life I've trained my brain to question and point out the flaws in things. To keep in problem solving when I feel like falling into despair at the very idea of the changes.

I will continue to #StayPositive, #DreamBig, and at the same time know that #ThisStruggleIsReal.

Thank you for participating in my life through the exchange of ideas. Bless you!