Behind Every Struggle

by Judy Ryan

“You don’t have to ‘fix’ anything about yourself. You don’t have to think a certain way, heal your past, clear your emotions, or embrace any specific belief system.”
­— Christopher M. Duncan, Author of You’re Not Broken

The greatest PROBLEM we have is a PROBLEM-orientation. While you may be facing struggles within your business, every struggle, in every setting, in every person, comes from limiting and fearful beliefs one holds about one’s self and others. In essence, when deep down inside we think, ‘I need to be better, something is wrong with me, I am deficient, flawed, and broken’ this is the root cause of every internal and external struggle.

Only people who realize they are enough NOW, are great or seeking to be great NOW, have a life worth living and loving NOW, and are a gift NOW, can be such a gift going forward. Only from this mindset and realization, can people move from victim to creator, from powerless to powerful, from broken to whole. Why is this so important to realize? Because how we set up our systems at work, home, school, and in society will be directly impacted by whether we understand this or not and respond appropriately. In order to bring forward the most innovative, confident, supportive, and lifegiving people, behaviors, ideas, and outcomes, our understanding of what’s behind every struggle informs how we develop and support one another, or fail to do so.

When we believe we are inferior, we (mostly unconsciously) seek to validate this in how we think about ourselves, life, and others. Then, we act this out, and set up structures to reinforce this by projecting our beliefs onto others, and allowing others to project them onto us. When we project fearful beliefs onto others, we dominate them thinking they can’t be trusted, bribe them thinking they will be selfish and lazy otherwise, judge them to get them to please us as their betters, and enable them as if they are incapable. Others who hold similar fearful, limited beliefs about us, visit the same upon us, creating dastardly discouragement.

Bottom line: when we believe in fearful and limiting ideas about ourselves and others, we create struggle. We struggle internally by getting stressed, discouraged, anxious, depressed, sick, self-absorbed, and detached from goals, dreams, hope, people and more. We struggle externally being defensive, righteous, opportunistic, cancelling and separating from people and causes, marginalizing, misbehaving, and at extremes, warring. Most people do not realize believing people are a PROBLEM needing to be fixed, IS the problem.

How does this realization help? When we remember that no one is broken, we remember that any behavior seeming to indicate otherwise is a cry for remembrance of one’s goodness and value of one’s power, essence, connection, and contribution. When we promote conversations and conditions that reinforce the magic and beauty in each person, we create an environment in which everyone gains courage, becomes caring, and creates more of what they and others love and value. This creates a positive spiral. Everyone gets committed to causing things from the best of who they are, not the fear of who they worry they might be! They stop struggling and start collaborating and innovating. Their energy is mobilized for good and great!

When we start from the belief that every person is enough, is amazing, is full of power, potential and value, then we set up systems that reinforce this and provide them the environment to thrive, develop, lead and follow with an eye towards greatness. We help them remember they are creators, not victims, that they are powerful, not powerless, and that we need them to be powerful and to guide that power in service to helping everyone else remember the same and act from the same. If you look at every struggle you face, you will see that behind every struggle is the notion that you’re broken or deficient or need to be better in some way. As you let this go, you become who you actually are which is GREAT!

Judy Ryan (judy@LifeworkSystems.com), human systems specialist, is owner of LifeWork Systems. Join her in her mission to create a world in which all people love their lives. She can also be reached at 314-239-4727.
People hire LifeWork Systems because we help businesses become agile and manage their priority system: their human system. I hope this article helps you make sense of what’s most crucial to your evolving organization!