I think one of the big lessons that most of us are unprepared for when we come into this world is the fact that, while life can be extremely beautiful, it can also be very harsh and difficult at times. 

In fact, in an ideal world,  I think one of the greatest lessons we could learn early on (from our parents or caregivers) is that life will suck at times and then be given tools on how to cope with those tough times. 

However, we are not in an ideal world, and so, below I'll tell you about how I deal with life's challenges and hopefully this will help you with yours. 

Life Sucks - So what do you we about it?

It just so happens that I'm currently in the thick of one of those tough weeks. I saved a baby chicken from dying, my gorgeous goat nearly died, now my beloved little heart-dog, Falkie is in the Vet Hospital being treated for tick paralysis and I really hope she makes it. All that is tough on my heart but then there is the added bonus of the expenses associated with caring for animals. Hard earned savings that finally made me feel more financially secure being drained right before my very eyes. Sigh.

I'm praying that my dog makes it and also feeling the heaviness and pain associated with her inevitable death (if not now then at a later stage...ah, that glorious, grounding realisation of mortality and how finite our lives are...ouch!)

God please, I hope she will be ok and I can hold her in my arms alive and healthy again!

Please, please, please!

And so, tough situations like this, or worse, appear in our lives over and over again, whether we like it or not.

Because, this is life.

Taaadaaaa!

In all its glory!

You have to learn to take the good with the bad. 

You have to learn to see the beauty in the darkness. 

You have to learn to live while you might feel like you are dying inside. 

And you have to accept that life is going to get bloody hard at times. 

Here are the tools that I have under my toolbelt that are helping me get through this time:

1. I'm allowing myself to feel it all - the pain, the heartache, the anger, the frustration...all of these emotions are pointing to different lessons or bringing attention to things I need to focus on more in my life. 

For example:

• The pain and heartbreak are showing me the love I have for my animals and how much they mean to me, they are also pointing me towards the awareness of eventually needing to let them go. This lesson also translates to the people I love in my life. As much as I would love to wrap everyone I love in bubble wrap and keep them safe always, its simply not viable and eventually my heart will break over and over again as I lose those that I love around me. I've been aware for a while that I have a fear of losing those I love, and now I'm being shown that it will hurt badly, but I have the tools and knowledge to keep going on while feeling the hurt and pain and allowing my feelings to reveal deeper aspects of myself. 
• The anger and frustration - I've been feeling a bit stuck in my business for a while and making lots of different excuses on why I can't work on it and earn more money. Money and business are a huge spiritual lesson for me in this life and while I've been working through the blocks and have become a money saving machine (I'm so proud of myself!), the growing a business side of things is a bit lacking. While I watch my hard, earned savings being drained right now, the anger and frustration that I'm feeling is helping me to prioritise my business more and simply grow the fuck up and get things done. 

Feeling the different emotions as they arise during tough times are vital because they hold different messages that we can learn from. 

Also, feeling the emotions rather then burying them deep down allows us to process what we are thinking and feeling, the energy of the event can then move our of our bodies rather then getting stuck in them. 

 

2. Nervous System Regulation and Embodiment - I've done lots of nervous system regulation over the years. Nervous system regulation isn't just a a fad, or doing some breath-work to feel calm, or a simple exercise that gets you back to a regulated state. No, nervous system regulation is about adjusting the state your nervous system is in which might be stuck in fight/flight or freeze/fawn responses and leaving you disassociated and unconscious of yourself and the patterns/behaviours in your life. You could be stuck in these responses and not even know it all of your life!

This is most people these days! Yikes!

It takes a lot of work and years of practices to be able to understand how your nervous system and body feels in these states and how to work through them. Then there are regular practices that you need to be doing to stay in a regulated state. I'll explain more about the nervous system and nervous system regulation in another post but for now, just know that years of practicing is helping me to not loose my shit right now. 

But when I do feel like I need a practice to come back into regulation I always fall back on Non-Linear Movement which is a simple yet extremely effective embodiment practice. In a few minutes of listening to my body and doing some non-linear movement most of the time I can release the tension and unfreeze myself. It's that powerful. That is why I now regularly teach Non-Linear Movement Method Classes to help others discover the power of their bodies and reconnect back to themselves. 

When we understand our bodies and that they are innately built to cope with stress and hardship and actually learn to let them do what it is they need to do to process it, we are able to cope with life with more ease, flow and grace.  

 

3. I give most of my experiences a spiritual meaning - I don't know how I lived life in an unconscious state and not being spiritual. Back then when I went through hardships I didn't know what was going on, why life was so hard, why things kept falling a part all the time, etc. 

Now I feel more connected to a greater power, the Universe, God and trust that even though shit really sucks at times it is somehow serving a purpose. I trust that the Universe always has my souls best interest at heart, even though the lessons might come is some pretty fucked up packages at times.
I believe that we are here on Earth for soul evolution and that tough times are catalysts for growth, or "an arse kicking from the Universe to get out of the comfort zone and learn some new shit". 

While I don't like the phrase "Everything happens for a reason" being used at times when people are going through hard times...cause how demeaning and un-empathetic and detached from their experience can you be?! Overall, I do keep a rendition of that in mind when times get tough for myself. Even if it doesn't really make sense at the time. I have a deep trust for the Divine. 

For example, when I was going though my Ayahuasca trauma a few years back where I had severe PTSD, was on the verge of psychosis, nervous system blown out completely and was suffering internally like I had never experienced or thought possible before...the phrase that got me through it was "If the Universe didn't think I was strong enough to go through this then it wouldn't have given it to me". 

And while I assign spiritual meaning to most things, I also think that sometimes it can be disassociating to assign every tiny thing that happens in our life a spiritual meaning. I went through a phase in my life like that and it drove me crazy...sometimes you need to accept things as they are, be human and move on. 

Being connected to spirituality can make sense of things that don't make sense in human societal terms and give us a sense of empowerment when our lives crash. 

 4. I remember that I am HUMAN - This is probably one of the most important points for us spiritual folks to remember. This is because, with all the inner work that we do, all the knowledge we have and tools under our belt, we often focus on being perfect in tough life circumstances. But being perfect is impossible, no matter how far along our spiritual or self-discovery journey we are on. Shucks! Even non-spiritual people struggle remembering they are simply human!

There are times where no matter what you have learned, how many practices you have done, how much wisdom you have acquired, you will simply break down, be a puddle on the floor, be totally chaotic or break down crying in front of the vet like I did today. 

And that is OK!

It's OK to be HUMAN!

Our souls came into human form to experience it's humanity too. 

Often when I talk to a good friend of mine who has been a healer for over a decade, when we are going through tough situations, we start off with trying to give things spiritual meanings, talk about the tools that we can use, or see various perspectives but the most relieving and soothing thing we generally come to the conclusion to is "And you know what...its also ok to be human!" and then we just take a deep sigh of relief and can be with whatever it is that's coming through in that moment. 

You know what? It's also OK to just be HUMAN.

I feel like we live in a world that tries to jump out of its human skin. We work like robots, we touch up photos for instagram, we edit our 'umms' and 'ahhhs' from videos, we use AI to write books for us, we undergo surgical procedures to have the "perfect body", we try to be perfectionist with spelling and grammar...and you know what? While we might be disassociated from our humanity, nothing that we do will ever stop us from being just that, in the end.

We are just HUMAN and no amount of spirituality or other things will take that away from us.

I like to imagine Jesus taking a shit in the woods or Buddha farting. Imagine bottling those up and selling them on eBay! haha!

Now go out into the world little one, know that life will be extremely harsh and hard at times. You will grow through it on a soul, mental, physical level and you will apply the tools you learn along your journey to help you cope with it all, but remember, that when you are struggling the most, you will always have your chaotic Humanity to fall back on and it's also ok to be a complete mess at times. 

Wild love, 

Stef Xx

I hope you have enjoyed the first blog I have ever written on this website! Yay! What a great way to distract myself from the worry about my little Falkie. 

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