“This is the great paradox – as you cultivate intimate relationship with your struggle, as you bring it forward into the light, into your awareness, it becomes a neutralizing experience. And you will find stillness on the other side of that.” – Lola Wright
When pain, discomfort, and struggle arise, we tend to run away. But beauty can be found in the breakdown and it is by moving toward our discomfort that we can transform the energy within the challenge. On the Find Your Fierce & Loving Podcast we’ll be talking all December long about this idea of finding the gifts in your struggle, challenge and breakdowns. Are you ready to fall in love with the gifts of your struggle?
Show Notes
It’s such an important time of the calendar year to get honest about what is nudging you, weighing you down, and holding you back. It really is true that what we resist persists. When you fight against that which burdens you, what you’re really doing is amplifying your discomfort. And so it’s a great time of year to fall in love with the gifts of our struggle.
2020 has been a wildly disruptive, reorienting, and recalibrating year. But beauty and opportunity can still be found even when confronted with deep loneliness and loss. Move toward discomfort, don’t run away! When we claim the gifts of our struggles, our breakdowns, our challenges, we completely transform the quality of them.
Our theme for the month of December is the gifts of struggle, challenge, and breakdowns. Listen to the episode and consider – what would it look like to develop an intimate relationship with your struggle?
- (00:39) – The gifts of struggle
- (03:55) – Blissipline
- (06:21) – Restorative retreat
- (08:26) – Affirm everything
- (11:28) – Invitation for awakening
- (13:47) – Cultivating peace
- (18:11) – Winter interest
Do you want to unleash your inherent love and goodness, liberate yourself, and free humanity from the oppressive systems and structures we have created? We are here to support you in finding your fierce and loving life. Join us in Our Circle, a vibrant membership community rich in opportunities for personal transformation and our collective awakening. Find out more at lolawright.com/our-circle. This winter consider joining us for the Set On Fire Virtual Retreat from December 30 to January 2 – end 2020 powerfully and enter 2021 creatively, lolawright.com/set-on-fire-retreat.
You can follow Lola Wright, on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter and learn more about my work at lolawright.com.
Chicago born and built, Lola grew up in wealth and privilege, yet always sensed something was missing. She sought out aliveness and freedom in music, immersing herself in the hip hop and house music scenes of 90s Chicago. After finding herself on her own at 23, as the mother of two young children, she became determined to create a new experience.
Lola is an ordained minister with a gift for weaving together the mystical and material, she served for many years as the CEO of Bodhi Center, an organization committed to personal transformation, collective awakening, conscious activism, and community-building.
Theme music by independent producer Trey Royal.
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Transcript
[00:00:01] Personal transformation and collective awakening involve being the most alive, brilliant, inspired, creative, on fire version of yourself, a version that is not consistent with the status quo. My name is Lola Wright and this is Find Your Fierce & Loving. This podcast is a wake up call, a roadmap back to your holy purpose, an invitation to set fire to the box you’ve been living in and watch it burn.
[00:00:41] Oh, wow, it’s a new month. In my world, it is. We are entering into the final month of this calendar year, the month of December, of the most wildly disruptive, reorienting, recalibrating year in modern history. It is December 2020. And on the Find Your Fierce & Loving podcast, we are starting with a monthly theme. And the theme, beloved, is the gifts of struggle, challenge, and breakdowns. You know, it’s such an important time of the calendar year to tap into completion, to tap into clarity, to get really honest about what is nudging you, swirling in you, weighing you down, holding you back. It really is true that what we resist persists. And so it’s a great time of year to fall in love with the gifts of our struggle.
[00:01:53] You know, I oftentimes will talk about this idea of having sex with your struggle. And really what that means is making love with the thing that you don’t want, don’t like, wish to be other than it is. Because when we are butting up against it, when we are pushing up against it, we’re actually amplifying it. So this month, let’s really look at the gifts. What are the gifts? You know, this rests on this notion that all of life is for you, that nothing is occurring separate or apart, that there is no energy or agenda that is against you. It’s really a kind of like spiritual ninja move. You can look at the martial arts really and see it’s the art of peace. It’s actually the art form of taking energy that is coming towards you, transforming it and regenerating it back out into the world.
[00:02:55] And it’s so interesting how the human condition is attached to labeling, judging and assessing change. The context that we very often have for change when we don’t prefer it is something is wrong and bad. Something is out there with the potential to do something to me. And I just want to underscore there is nothing in this material realm that can ultimately, absolutely, or fundamentally access the power, the presence, the authority, the holiness that is you. So when we think about our struggles, our challenges, our breakdowns, that’s really the context and the paradigm that I want to invite you into.
[00:03:47] You know, if you’re in a climate like I am in the Midwest, you can see this very clearly in our change of seasons. So as I took a walk this morning in this really beautiful woodsy environment and looked up at these just profoundly large trees, the thought I had was, you know, as they are bare, it’s very, very tempting to tap into the loss. It’s very easy to say, oh, I miss the leaves. I miss the color. I miss the texture.
[00:04:31] But here’s what I want to have you consider. I’d love for you to consider that even when life looks barren, even when things have changed, even when a loss of your preference occurs, there is still beauty present. There are still opportunity available. There is still lush and rich learning. I don’t say that as a kind of spiritual bypass. You know, I’m very sensitive to the notion that we tap into positivity bias as a means of avoiding our discomfort. So I will always invite you into the discomfort. That is where our richest learning is.
[00:05:11] So in this month of December, I wonder if you’d join me in a kind of daily practice to unearth that which you may resist being with. You know, it’s subtle. Like we can apply this practice to the mundane and to the magnificent. Whatever it is that you’re chewing on, tussling with, apply this practice. Imagine every day in the month of December, we invoke a kind of discipline, as Michael Beckwith might call it, a blissipline. Such a brilliant term, really get that. What if your discipline could occur for you as a blissipline, as a practice that expands your experience of bliss, not as a means of avoiding discomfort, but paradoxically as a way of moving towards discomfort? When you and I move towards discomfort, when we claim the gifts of our struggles, our breakdowns, our challenges, we completely transform the quality of them.
[00:06:22] You know, my husband and I are currently on our very own little meditation retreat. We came to this tiny house in Michigan to give ourselves some place and space. And, you know, one of the things that we’ve noticed over the course of the pandemic is how easy it is to just slip into some comfort practices, whether that be with food, whether that be with alcohol, whether that be with scrolling, whether that be with TV. Anything that you do in life can be done from a state of deep consciousness and or it can be done from a place of deep unconsciousness.
[00:07:01] And so we decided let’s just like play with this struggle of how much is too much in terms of frequency of drinking alcohol. And so we brought a bunch of alcohol to this tiny little house, and we decided we weren’t going to have any until we got really clear on what the grand intention of this trip was. And then we would check in throughout the day. And so we’re sitting in this practice of like noticing the desire to have a glass of wine. It’s like this woodsy cabin. We’ve lit a candle. We’re cooking dinner. We have this beautiful instrumental jazz in the background. And wouldn’t it sound just like totally apropos to have a bold glass of red wine? Totally. But where does that desire come from? I mean, primarily it’s sold to us. So it’s not actually native to me. You know, it’s not like, you know, it’s not like a longing that lives at the center of my being. It’s actually something that I’ve absorbed through media, advertising, culture, society. So I pause and I go, oh, from where is it that I’m wanting that? And how will it enhance, expand, illuminate this restorative retreat that we are on?
[00:08:29] Now, I imagine you may be hearing this and thinking to yourself, I mean, really like that’s the level of subtlety that you’re inviting me into. And I would say, yeah, because, you know, you and I can’t make the kind of cultural global impact. We can’t even make the kind of family impact we desire if we are not in a regular practice with our subconscious mind. This is the soul, the houser of beliefs, thoughts, memories, feelings, opinions. When you and I are detached from our subconscious mind or our soul, we are living from the outside in.
[00:09:08] And I am inviting you in the month of December to tap into a new paradigm of gifts. You know, the greatest gift you could give yourself this December is a kind of reconciliation of your soul, a kind of falling in love with your challenges, your breakdowns, your struggle. What you could move towards is resisting nothing and affirming everything. As you and I come into deeper and deeper practice. With that, we become more grounded, more rooted, more stabilized. We become immovable in the best of ways.
[00:10:01] I’m so excited. We have kicked off Our Circle, this dynamic membership community that gathers each and every week live and on demand. If you’re looking for a way to take this conversation into deeper practice, consider checking out Our Circle. All the information is on my website, lolawright.com. This December, at the end of the month, as a way to end 2020 powerfully and enter 2021 creatively, I am inviting you into the Set On Fire Virtual Retreat. It’s 99 dollars, and it’s going to be an immersive experience with a little bit of community gathering on December 30 from 7-9p Central Time. Then we will have two days of self guided practice, which we will provide you with all of the instructions and lovingly nudge you on. And then we’ll reconvene on Saturday, January 2, from 1-3:30p Central Time. If you are looking for a way to end 2020 powerfully and enter 2021 creatively, I would love to have you join me for the Set On Fire Retreat. Find the link in today’s show notes and get registered. Invite your friends. Join me. It will be powerful, mystical, magical. And I want you there with me.
[00:11:29] So we woke up this morning after a night of being on this retreat, having chosen not to indulge in the practice of drinking alcohol and our energy was enhanced. It was illuminated. It was expanded. Again, I want you to pay attention. This is not a critique on drinking alcohol. It is an invitation into the subtleties of your subconscious. See, I oftentimes will remind us that we have a tendency to get highly oriented around what is happening in the world. And we will make a massive leap into, say, like the art of meditation or into this very sort of mystical realm, which is a beautiful thing, but the invitation for real awakening occurs in the soul, awakening your soul, your subconscious mind. What am I believing? What am I perceiving? What am I filtering life through?
[00:12:44] So take a deep breath and just see in this now moment, what is it that you’re resisting? What is it that you’re bumping up against? What is it that you’re wanting to be other than it is, and can you just take a deep breath? Can you allow yourself to relax into the what’s so of the world before you? The facts of that which is occurring. Our capacity to become comfortable with the uncomfortable shifts everything. Our ability to get honest with hurt, resentment, shame, not as a kind of self-indulgence, but as the greatest contribution you and I may make to humanity.
[00:13:46] You know, it’s so seductive to want to make shifts and changes in society to move towards a kind of like world peace. I don’t know a human that does not desire world peace, and yet very often we have not been able to cultivate a sense of deep peace right where we are. There is no possibility for peace on Earth without a felt sense and a reliable experience of peace within your own being.
[00:14:29] So the gift of this season, the gift of the leaves falling away, the gift of social calendars full falling away. To merge a pandemic with a season change at the holidays may bring you to your knees. You may be confronted with a sense of deep loneliness. You may be confronted with a sense of great loss. And in any moment, we may enter the stillness, the sacred, the gifts of challenge and struggle. And find love there. To fall madly in love with our challenges not as a neurotic practice, but as a deep reverence for our humanity, as an invitation into our work and as a contribution to cultivating a deep sense of peace within ourselves.
[00:15:45] Many of us are opting to not spend time with family and friends this holiday season as a kind of deep honoring of our own health and as an observation of a kind of global health crisis that we are in the midst of. You may be experiencing a kind of isolation or loneliness. You may be experiencing a kind of stillness or resistance to what is. And I just want to invite you into the possibility that the releasing of the material experiences that you are used to, perhaps the kind of traditions that you may be accustomed to. The release of those, in fact, creates space for something new to emerge.
[00:16:39] So the question I ask you to consider all month is what are the many gifts of the struggle, the challenges and the breakdowns I find myself in right now?
[00:16:55] Perhaps the gift for you is to learn to have sex with your struggle. Now, you know, if sex is not an affirming paradigm for you, then substitute that with something else. Dance with your struggle. Make love with your struggle. Paint with your struggle.
[00:17:16] What I am calling forward is that we resist nothing and affirm everything. As I’ve said many times before, the struggle is not real. It is manufactured. We create experiences, dynamics, systems, relationships that require struggle for us to feel aliveness. If you were to eliminate your resistance or reduce your resistance to struggle, it would free up all kinds of energy for creativity, for reverence of the stillness, for deep appreciation for the solitary.
[00:18:13] Many of you have heard me talk about this concept that my husband turned me on to called winter interest, and I’m going to talk more about that this month because it is such a powerful context. You know, he designs his landscapes with the winter in mind. You could design your life with the winter in mind, metaphorically. From his perspective, when he designs with the winter in mind, he designs for the barren. Can my environment look beautiful in the barren? Can my environment experience deep peace and presence when everything has fallen away? When the leaves have gone? When the hydrangea have dried? Can I see the beauty in the winter? Can I find the gifts in the stillness? Can I lean into love in the struggle?
[00:19:28] So wherever you are in this now moment, in this season of stillness, take an inventory of that which you’re resisting. This is the great paradox. As you cultivate intimate relationship with your struggle, as you bring it forward into the light, into your awareness, it becomes a neutralizing experience. And you will find stillness on the other side of that.
[00:20:04] So we are in a season of great gifts. We are in a season of allowing ourselves to feel the gifts of struggle, of breakdown, of challenges. Allow yourself to make peace with the parts of life that you wish were other than they are.
[00:20:30] Have sex with your struggle. Dance with your struggle. Paint with your struggle. Cook with your struggle. Bring it all in. There’s room enough for all of it. And the less serious it feels, the more available we are to creative solution, the easier it is to hear our intuition.
[00:20:58] Happy holidays. Welcome to the Gifts of Struggle.
[00:21:06] If you enjoyed this show and would like to receive new episodes as they’re published, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and consider leaving a review in Apple podcasts, your reviews help others find this show.
[00:21:22] You can follow me @lolapwright on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter and learn more about my work at lolawright.com.
[00:21:32] This episode was produced by Dante32 with theme music from independent music producer Trey Royal.
[00:21:48] So take a deep breath and just see in this now moment, what is it that you’re resisting? What is it that you’re bumping up against? What is it that you’re wanting to be other than it is?
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