One of my good friends lives in Kenya with his fiancé so we don’t see each other as frequently as we used to when they lived in Sydney. We got a chance to catch up a few weeks ago when he was telling me about how much more intense his life in Africa is now, as opposed to his previous first world problems when he lived in Australia.
He then shared a conversation he’d had with his older sister regarding their younger sibling recently. The eldest sibling was of the opinion that their little sister had lived a cruisy life and hadn’t done it as ‘tough’ as the older 2. This got my attention as I hear myself saying similar things, often paraphrased with ‘Back when I was younger..’, or ‘When I first qualified..’, or ‘In those days when we rehearsed our choreography..’.
So I can’t help but wonder, do old struggles help us handle pressure a little better, or do they just make us feel a little jaded? Because in the example of my buddy and his 2 sisters, the older one that had to jump through hurdles doesn’t really manage her stress levels very well.
Most of us feel empowered when we overcome a particularly tough time, but to hold on to that struggle like a badge of honour only invites that kind of energy to come back into our lives. It becomes like a self fulfilling prophecy that is carried in our thoughts, our feelings, our expectations, and energetically, it’s what we attract via our aura.
If our belief systems somehow make the act of struggling greater than the lessons learned, we no longer have any protection against negativity and this in turn depletes our strength and vitality. For the most part, our genuine feelings about a situation / person / event tend to emerge in casual conversation, so if we’re constantly romanticising our battles, what kind of imprints do we leave in our aura?