How many of us truly believe we deserve the best in life? And I’m not talking about fantasising and dreaming, but deep down to the core of who we are. Do you feel you deserve the best?
It is easy to settle in life, so easy just to accept our lot. Maybe we have tried and perceived many failures in terms of relationships, family, health, money, business and we have just resigned to the fact that well… we tried… but this is it. I know I have.
Sometimes we don’t know that we are blocking the best. Sometimes we believe we are clearing away the rubble of old beliefs to release the limitations we place on ourselves, but we miss some essential truths along the way, some deeper truths that prevent us for feeling we can have the following:
EASY joy
EASY growth
EASY money
EASY relationships
EASY Love
EASY peace
I have struggled so much in my life, I am not embarrassed to say this because I feel so many of us struggle through life.
We have been taught to satisfy certain beliefs we carry, that struggle is part of life.
Why Do We Choose Struggle Over Easy?
Well I chose struggle over easy because on a deep level I felt I would be betraying my deceased father’s memory. I did not know this truth until recently, so when we are ready, we receive a greater understanding of our big WHY?
And the reasons we struggle can be different within families. For example, my sister was born when I was 13 and my father died when she was 13. Something of a strange coincidence that the number 13 was so significant for us. I was grateful to receive 26 years of my father in my life, but because I had much longer in adult years, I also received so much more conditioning and faulty beliefs. I was old enough to see my father struggle incredibly; I was old enough to watch him come home so tired after working a job he hated to put bread on the table; I was old enough to see him panic over credit card debts, especially after his first heart attack, and I was old enough to know that to him working hard, even if you hated it, was important.
One time after I returned from backpacking around Australia before he died, I left a temporary job as a receptionist that I hated. My mum was okay with it, but when my dad found out he called me a lazy bitch. I guess those words from the father I loved really stuck deeply in my mind and buried itself unconsciously for a long time.
Often Easy Is Not Part of Our Ancestral or Family of Origins Make-up
In my father’s time, when he was young, he grew up in a poor family in the north east of England. I remember him telling me how he and his brothers would fight over who got the last chicken wing on the dinner table. Photos of my father in his teenage years were similar to someone’s body in a highly malnourished under-developed country. His ribs were sticking out so prominently. So he was taught to survive, that you had to work hard, you had to struggle, it was part of the generation he grew up in.
So I spent most of my life in deep conflict, especially after I awakened spiritually to the bigger picture in life. I had such a great inner dichotomy going on. A part of me knew that being creative, life being easy, flowing, joyful, peaceful and loving was possible… but a deeper and heavier part of me also said ‘Life is meant to be a struggle. If you are not working really hard and tiring yourself out, you are not doing what you are supposed to do’. I was in constant battle between the two of EASY and STRUGGLE.
Deserving the best in life seemed to come with a price in my mind. To have the best clothes, house and other material things meant working so hard I was exhausted. And because of this I moved my perception of what I could accept into life from the best to mediocre, tiny and small.
While others were desiring and allowing in great riches and abundance, wonderful relationships… I allowed myself a cup of coffee in a café or a new dress from a second-hand clothing store. My ceiling of value and worth was so low because I did not want to let my father down.
The crazy thing about this belief I was carrying was that my father is probably on the other side of the veil shouting ‘Enjoy life Kelly, you deserve the best! You go for easy; struggle didn’t work for me! I got it wrong’.
Why Do You Deserve the Best?
Because you’re alive.
NOT because you are super busy and working hard.
NOT because you have your shit together.
NOT because you’re beautiful.
NOT because you’re kind and compassionate.
NOT because you’re peaceful and loving.
NOT because you found your purpose.
NOT because you’re popular.
NOT because you have your own home.
NOT because you’re in a relationship.
NOT because you’re confident.
Simply because you’re alive.
Think about it this way, there are many people who are mean, unkind humans and they have the best of so many things in life and here we are thinking we don’t deserve the best out of some sacred virtue.
The hard realisation is dropping the idea that we need to be so many things to be worthy and deserving of the best and more importantly of life being EASY.
There is no great virtue in working yourself into the ground. It may have been virtuous in certain generations when it was more about survival of the fittest, but now… not so much.
How Do We Let the Struggle Go?
First, we need to understand that we are struggling and not only this, but that we are choosing to struggle. We want struggle. The mind may tell you ‘Hell no!’ but really, if you are honest, any struggle you have, you chose on some level. Be it your beliefs passed down to you from family or culture, to being surrounded by people who encourage your struggle, or to low self-esteem, you believe your value is low.
You may have been taught that you don’t deserve new in your life. For example, you were taught that everything breaks down, so your job is to fix it. So you love the struggle (in a warped way) of having things, relationships and problems to fix, but what if it’s okay for you to let that go now, to know that new, beauty, love, ease, joy and peace were also a big part of your human make-up. You just never knew it was a possibility until now because you have been living by a driving belief given to you by your parents, your ancestors, your culture, your family.
Some souls choose struggle for a purpose, so I am not dismissing people who chose such great roles as being a parent to a child with deeply special needs, this is hard stuff, or caring for a sick parent. Sometimes our souls have such a desire to work on a deeper level that we work with different human experiences. But again even in the depths of this life struggle we can release the resistance to ‘what is’ and even make these tough struggles less so.
How do you go from struggle to ease?
Awareness is the first step.
What beliefs do you believe about life?
Do you feel you need to work hard?
Do you feel you must settle for partners you are not attracted to because you don’t deserve true love?
Do you feel riches and wealth are for other people?
Do you feel that riches and wealth are for mean greedy people and you were taught not to be one of those people, or your parents (even if deceased) won’t love you if you become one of ‘those’ people?
We can have so many beliefs driving our lives on autopilot until we stop and question and become aware.
When we understand what ours are, we can then experiment and see, imagine, speak out loud, what would it be like if life was easy? What is the best to me?
And from here you then start to focus on what you do have in your life that has elements of those desires you always thought were far beyond your reach.
For me, living in an urban street, that is pretty much a rough area, a bit dirty and can be noisy. I can get lost sometimes focusing on the noisy neighbours or the litter on the streets dumped by the people who live here or I can focus on the peace and quiet between the sounds, listen to the wind roar through the leaves on the trees, see the birds visiting my bird feeder, see the elements of nature I long to spend more time in. I sound out loudly in prayer and talk out loud what I would like, just to feel into this new way of being.
It is a journey, yes maybe it’s been a struggle, but maybe it’s time for easy, we do deserve the best, we are just unravelling all those conditioned beliefs that had us believing we deserved struggle.
One step at a time.
Are you ready for the best?
Catch up on the latest posts below
- The Shock Of The New
- Memorial Jewellery: Finding Comfort in Grief After Losing a Loved One
- How To Embrace Uncertainty
- Are You Lying To Yourself About Your Desires?
- Hate Anxiety? Love It Instead
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Kelly Martin, author of ‘When Everyone Shines But You’ is a dedicated writer and blogger who fearlessly explores life’s deepest questions. Faced with a decade of profound anxiety and grief following the loss of her father and her best friend Michael, Kelly embarked on a transformative journey guided by mindfulness, and she hasn’t looked back since. Through her insightful writing, engaging podcasts, and inspiring You Tube channel Kelly empowers others to unearth the hidden treasures within their pain, embracing the profound truth that they are ‘enough’ exactly as they are.
