Alchemy: Struggles to Gold

The biggest lie I bought into as an adult is - we are not supposed to struggle, have challenges, or make mistakes. This is also called perfectionism. I have suffered with depression and crippling anxiety, on and off, all my life and though anxiety and depression are a kind of struggle I have come to a conclusion from my personal experience. The depression and anxiety are a result of resisting my own nature and the process of evolving through struggles. My depression and anxiety are caused by two inner beliefs: depression - “my life and who I am, should be different or easier”, and anxiety - that “life should be without ups and downs and that if I was doing everything right there should be no mistakes and no struggle.” So, I obsessed over my mistakes, and I beat myself up for all my short comings.

I have been reading about mindsets. I learned that I have a fixed mindset and that a better one to have is a growth mindset. Research on neuroplasticity has shown that making mistakes is actually good for learning and helps the brain make new connections. It’s through challenge and going a little pass our ability that is a good space for learning. This is a growth mindset.

There are a couple of things that come to mind with this new way of looking at challenges and mistakes. I get so excited because I see clearly how struggle is just part of the package of life. And it’s just plain obvious and I will be the first to palm face myself for letting myself be persuaded that to struggle was optional. I have three concrete examples.

1. To learn to walk you have to stumble. Stumbling is the struggle but when you are a baby, instinct, and the prospect of being able to walk is so moving it never occurs to the baby that it is work or a struggle. It is just the process of learning to walk.

2. Monarch Butterflies must push themselves out of their chrysalis to build up the strength to survive –if the butterfly is cut out too soon and it is robbed of its struggle, it will die. Struggle builds strength.

3. Even the very act of childbirth or being born is a struggle, mom pushing and baby gasping for breath, crying and screaming.

To me this means struggle is actually a very important and essential part of life –it’s the very force that helps me to evolve. It is not doling out punishment but is helping me build strength or skills needed to be whatever I was born to be.

The second thing that comes to mind when seeing struggle and mistakes as a sign of strength building and learning is that, I love to learn, and lord knows I have made mistakes. This change of mindset makes me take another look at my personal struggles maybe all the mistakes I made were not a waste of time but were little moments of my brain making new connections and learning and building strength.

Maybe the struggle is actually a hint at something I would be good at helping another person through.

That my struggles are sign of what my life “lessons’ are in and where I have untapped knowing. What if I could use my struggles to come up with new ideas, ways of looking at challenges and using this knowledge to help others. This is profound to me. That all my salt water tears over my struggles could be turned into golden knowledge -this is true alchemy to me. I see life as a school with lessons. -its not showing me right or wrong but giving me opportunities to become, evolve and learn. I need to learn and create. I need to struggle, to be allowed to make mistakes, to grow and evolve.

I am dyslexic. Most likely ADHD. These were struggles that I had to work through. I didn’t learn to read as quick as some and the way I learn needs to be multisensory. Life gave me lot more struggles. School made me feel like I was always behind and a big mistake and that I am too stupid, too spaced out, and too sensitive, to do anything.I am also very stubborn and have dug my heels in refusing to believe that its just who I am –its just my lot in life. I believe you have to learn about yourself. You have to know yourself through and through, because other people will try to tell you what your limits are.

I am highly sensitive, a deep thinker and very creative. To me this now means I am built for challenges and struggle, with the capacity to come out with great ideas and making something from them. I now see depression and anxiety not as a struggle but as RESISTANCE to life itself TO MY TRUE NATURE– thinking life should be without its challenges and struggle. What if my struggles is not a sign of weakness or failing -what if its a sign of my learning and growth. From my understanding fix mindsets is the idea that each human only has certain capacity to learn and that the ability to learn math or art is something you are born with—you either have it or you don’t. Growth mindset on the other hand is based around actual brain science and, says that you can expand your ability in any subject by learning through mistakes. I believe that life is intelligent and benevolent. If the butterfly has the innate instinct to be a butterfly and do what butterflies do –I believe life built me with all I need too and that struggle and challenges and mistakes is just the way life helps me evolve and become better. I am after all a NATURAL LEARNER.

The word struggle sounds unpleasant - that life is just about “working” and though I don’t doubt that life comes with its labors, as we discussed with mom giving birth and even with the butterfly pushing itself out of it’s chrysalis. If I instead look to the baby I think I can see another way to look at learning and struggle. The baby is unaware of the work or effort driven by instinct or innate desire to learn to walk and it’s motivated by wanting to play with the toy on the other side of the room. The baby’s focus is on the desired outcome -having its hands on the toy not necessarily the actual struggle of walking.

When I play board games, as a player I have set backs but I don’t usually take board games seriously Its actually fun to be thrown by a move that takes me back steps - it keeps the game interesting. I am just playing. Taking it lightly and looking for opportunities to do better. I think through play and deliberate focus, the process of learning, the struggle would be more enjoyable. If I am not in resistance -the struggle is actually a push, –momentum toward whatever I put my focus on. I am a natural learner after all, struggle is not happening to me, it is happening for me. Pushing me toward my evolving nature. I would argue to say that I can’t even stop it completely – life is who I am and life is persistent – life will alchemize me and my story. All I need to do is put my focus on what I want and do my best to not resist life’s push. I am a conscious creator playing in this wild raw existence. I choose to create magic and to alchemize my struggles into gold.