Episode 3: In the embrace of life’s journey—from struggle to surrender
When you have made a commitment to go on a journey and you are right in the thick of your adventure—hand, legs, knees, body and all—it is not an uncommon experience to get waylaid or stuck. Perhaps there is some place that you want to get to but you find that the path ahead is obstructed by unforeseen obstacles or challenges. Uncomfortable as it can feel, encountering challenges is an inevitable part of any journey, for which adventure is ever smooth sailing and what would be the point if it were? In today’s episode, we will explore how to embrace our struggles as a part of our larger journey in life and go on an amazing adventure of awareness and discovery.
Listen now:
In this episode of Super Soul Podcast, we will…
Explore what it means to go on a journey and the struggles we may face
Learn how to be comfortable when you get stuck in the mud in life
Gain perspective by understanding the polarity of each situation
Redefine our relationship with life’s inevitable challenges
Discover life’s true purpose for you
“All you have to do is to realise that you too are made of the stars.”
Full transcript below.
When you have made a commitment to go on a journey and you are right in the thick of your adventure—hand, legs, knees, body and all—it is not an uncommon experience to get waylaid or stuck. Perhaps there is some place that you want to get to but you find that the path ahead is obstructed by unforeseen obstacles or challenges. Metaphorically, maybe you encounter a treacherous mountain range that demands immense physical strength to conquer, or your job engulfs you in an overwhelming sense of disorientation. The initial excitement and enthusiasm that propelled you forwards might waver, replaced by moments of self-doubt and frustration. It may feel as if the entire universe is conspiring to test your determination and resilience.
Uncomfortable as it can feel, encountering challenges is an inevitable part of any journey, for which adventure is ever smooth sailing and what would be the point if it were? When seemingly insurmountable barriers block our path, leaving us feeling very helpless and trapped, our instincts may be to resist and fight against it, believing that struggling will set us free. But if there’s anything we can learn from quick sand is that the more we struggle, the more we get bogged down into the mud.
In today’s episode, we will explore how to embrace our struggles as a part of our larger journey in life and what it means to surrender our fears to go on an amazing adventure of awareness and discovery.
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Speaking about being stuck in the mud, true story here and it is quite a literal story about being stuck in the mud—during my University days, my flatmate and I often went exploring the outback in Australia. I hardly spent time studying, every moment I had I was off gallivanting somewhere. I was lucky to have a flat mate with the same adventurous spirit as me and a pickup truck, they call it a ute as in a utility truck, that allowed us to go out in the wilds.
We would very often, at the drop of a hat, in the most random of hours like 11pm at night sometimes, come up with some crazy idea about doing sth or going somewhere and we would just set off within the hour. On one of those many nights, we went driving in the countryside up north of Brisbane. We set out to see the Milky Way, as we quite often did—with a hot flask of tea in hand and our blown up airbeds —and stargaze at the night sky, seeing who could count more shooting stars. This night though, instead of snuggling in our cosy airbeds with hot tea counting stars, we got stuck for hours in some open field somewhere that we randomly drove into. Our wheel was bogged down in the mud and try as we might, we just couldn’t get it to spin.
This was no 4WD of course, for which student could afford that, and so we had to unstuck ourselves the old fashioned way—using heaps and heaps of cardboard. We tore up cardboard boxes in the back of the truck and then laid them out in piles under the wheel so that the wheel could catch on something and gain traction. And since there were only two of us, we had to take turns trying to make it work—one would set the cardboard and the other would direct the steering. Each time we set down a new stack of cardboards and tried to accelerate, hoping the wheel would catch, mud would fling absolutely everywhere. That included flinging all over us!
The first time we accelerated, we weren’t actually thinking about it and as a consequence, copped a big chunk of mud all over our faces and bodies. My goodness, the memory of that first splat. Mind you, we didn’t even have much water to wash it off and mud gets really itchy when it dries. It may not have been quick sand but the more we fought against it, the more we got stuck.
Initially, I was all eeked out by the mud, but after a few moments, I thought to myself, ahh what the heck, let’s just have fun! So, after a couple of hours of trying to get the wheel to catch on cardboard boxes, we finally managed to unstuck ourselves from the muddy struggle, top to toe covered in sludge, only to find out we were on some farmer’s paddock illegally. Without realising, we must have accidentally wandered into it in the dark. Luckily all she did was roll her eyes at us and told us sternly to drive off as soon as we could.
That supposed evening of relaxing stargazing turned into one of the biggest experience I would never forget and today, whenever I find myself stuck in the mud in life, no matter where I am literally or metaphorically, in the middle of the countryside, in my job, when I’m travelling somewhere and without anyone to help or when I’m doing this podcast, I know I will always find a way out, just like I did. I take this memory with me on my journey.
And so it is with life. The ability to approach our struggles with light-hearted ease and to embrace our experiences as they are—good or bad, easy or tough, muddy or not—speaks of our capacity to live in the present moment. These challenges, obstacles and moments of feeling trapped are all an organic part of our greater journey in life. They happen as and when; sometimes we can plan for them but more often than not, they appear without prior warning, coming and going on their own timeline and rhythm, just like the waves in the ocean, flowing and ebbing to the tides.
But even the best of us aren’t necessarily good beach surfers in life who know how to master the waves. Being stuck or feeling helpless is a common experience in life. In an effort to regain emotional certainty or clarity, many of us get trapped in the confines of black of white thinking, right or wrong judgements. Existing in these polarised states of emotion or thought may give us a temporary sense of certainty and or clarity but it only allows us to see a partial picture of the true reality.
For example, getting trapped in strong emotions such as anger or justification without getting in touch with where it is coming from or feeling victimised when circumstances seem unfair without taking charge of our lives. Or we might succumb to the grip of fear, anticipating potential mishaps, instead of meeting it with bravery and vulnerability. Had we given in to our helplessness and anxiety, we may not have even thought about placing cardboards under the wheel for it to catch. When we view our situations from a fixed and narrow perspective, we can’t see the whole organic picture and the potential solutions that lie therein, exacerbating our stuckness.
Things rarely exist in absolute terms as we know. Much as we want to feel safe and certain by clearly defining the blacks and whites, life is multifaceted and exists in shades of grey; the starting and ending of which blends into the other, like gentle rolling waves of undulating gradients. Amidst our strong emotions of frustration, anger or fear, lies a deeper reminder that everything we feel, think and experience is simply a part of the broader tapestry of life itself that forms the complete whole; that within us exists an innate awareness of who we are and where we want to be, even if the exact route remains uncertain and scary.
When we embrace our struggles from this perspective, we navigate through life's transitional phases with confidence as well as patience and kindness. It isn’t about being passive either; rather, it is about flowing with life's rhythm, accepting the uncertainty and surprises that come our way. In face of our dawning awareness, this desire to grasp control gradually fades away. When we stop fighting life and learn to embrace our emotions and struggles as a larger part of our spiritual journey, we walk into the NOW and open the gateway to profound inner growth. Our strong emotions and thoughts, far from being a roadblock, become the catalyst for our self-discovery—and a powerful reminder of what it means to be truly present to our journey.
All our angsty emotions get redirected into the curious discovery of new paths, new approaches and new solutions—going from reactivity to responsiveness, from attachment to detachment, and from myopia to perspective. The point between these two states, where our reactivity meets our responsiveness, is known as the NOW space. This is the very moment we come into the acknowledgement of the present; a state of surrender of neither fighting nor avoiding.
Have you ever experienced being "in the zone"; that magical moment before a competition when the noise fades away and you become so very still, or nervously standing in front of a crowd about to give a speech but becoming so focused that the audience becomes a blurry singularity, or simply being so engrossed in something you love that you lose track of time? This is the essence of being in the now. It is like stepping into an infinite zone, where time loses its grip and we find ourselves in a state of flow. All distractions vanish and we become one with the moment itself, fully engaged in the here and the now. We come into the middle point, the center.
As we surrender to our unfolding journey, we allow life's mysteries to reveal themselves and propel us towards a deeper understanding of who we are and why we are here. Deep within us, lies the spark of awareness and of an enduring truth that is borne of the Universe itself. When we go stargazing—and if you have never done so before, I highly recommend that you experience it once in your life—it may initially feel like we are watching the Universe as a separate being. But as it goes on and with each stream of light we see dancing across the night sky, we come into the startling realisation that we are made of the same stuff as the shooting stars themselves. The most fundamental of elements in the Universe—the hydrogen—is contained within each star and just as it is contained within our bodies too.
The American astronomer Carl Sagan once wrote, “The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff.” I say simply, that we come from stardust and we will return to stardust one day. If we didn’t know this, perhaps it is because we have only temporarily forgotten this truth.
And so if you one day find yourself being stuck in the mud somewhere, literally like I was or metaphorically in life, know that the emotions and struggles you are feeling are there to guide you come into your highest expression in life and become the person you were meant to be. After all, the Universe is always conspiring to help us grow and rise into our brightest self. All you have to do is to realise that you too are made of the stars.
This for one, is my reality.
So I will end off today’s episode with the 3 things I would tell my younger self if I got stuck in the mud:
When things get hard as they surely will, stop fighting against it and get curious about what life is trying to tell you,
Let go of controlling the situation and allow yourself to be guided by the very situations that seem to trap you,
Come into a state of surrender and allow life’s mysteries to reveal itself to you.
Thank you for being here with me today. I’m so glad to share this journey with you. Stay curious and hydrated on yours.