Hard Things Verse Things That Feel Hard
I have been thinking a lot lately about this idea of “white-knuckling” or “forcing” ourselves to do things that feel hard.
Something I see come up often in the mind-body self healing community is this confusion around when we should “push” versus when we should back off and rest more.
And it’s not so black and white, is it?
But I think there is a real opportunity here to break this down, create some new reframes, and learn how to better discern what actually feels supportive.
Because I don’t know that I agree that we ever really need to white-knuckle our way through something.
In fact, I think “white-knuckling” is itself a story—a description based on our perception of an experience.
The same goes for “forcing.”
Think about it.
When we say, “I HAVE to FORCE myself to do this,” what is the energy behind that statement?
Go ahead. Say it out loud.
“I have to force myself to do this.”
Now notice what happens in your body.
What sensations arise? What emotions come up? What kind of energy does that statement carry?
Now try this one:
“I just have to white-knuckle through it sometimes.”
Again, notice.
How does that feel in your body?
Now, let’s try something different:
“You know, this still feels hard right now, but I’m choosing to do it because consciously I know it’s safe, and I’m going to bring safety into my system as I do it.”
What happens now?
What is the energy behind that statement?
How does it feel in your body?
Totally different, right?
I am in a season of my life where I am deeply committed to breaking down and challenging EVERY story I witness myself expressing and holding onto.
And this idea of “hard” is one of them.
I absolutely believe that part of the healing journey is often choosing to do the things that feel hard.
But even saying that something is hard no longer feels quite right to me.
Because what decides that something is hard?
It’s completely subjective, isn’t it?
What feels incredibly hard to one person might be the easiest thing in the world to someone else. So I don’t necessarily want to keep sending the message to my brain:
“Hey brain, this is a REALLY HARD THING, but let’s do it anyway.”
Now, I actually think that statement is a step up from “I have to force myself” or “I just have to white-knuckle through this,” because there is choice within it.
And with choice comes empowerment.
But I still think we can do better.
Because we are still reinforcing the story that the thing itself is, indeed, hard.
So what if we changed it?
“Hey brain, I’m choosing to do this despite how hard it feels right now because I know that, in time, it can feel easy.”
Now we have choice.
We have empowerment.
And we’re also sending a completely different message to the brain.
We’re no longer saying, “This thing IS hard.”
We’re saying, “This thing FEELS hard right now.”
Those are two very different statements.
One turns “hard” into an identity.
The other makes it a temporary experience.
And temporary experiences have the capacity to change.
VERY different energy.
Okay, so that’s part one.
But then comes the bigger question:
How do I decide when it is appropriate to choose to do something that feels hard?
Because now we know we’re not white-knuckling.
We’re not forcing.
But many of us can look back at who we were before we started feeling unwell and recognize that we ignored our bodies for a long time. We pushed through, we overrode signals, and we kept going.
So naturally, we might think, “Well, if pushing through was part of the problem before, surely pushing myself now can’t be the solution.”
And there is truth in recognizing those old patterns.
But sometimes, in trying so hard not to return to one extreme, we can swing all the way to the other end of the pendulum.
We can become afraid of ever choosing to do something that feels hard.
We can start interpreting discomfort as a sign that we should stop.
We can become hesitant to stretch ourselves because we are afraid of becoming the person who ignored ourselves all over again.
But there is an important difference between then and now.
Before, many of us were pushing through over and over and over again without any counterbalance.
There was no awareness, no intentional regulation, no bringing in safety.
Sometimes there wasn’t enough rest, we just pushed.
But today, we are equipped with many tools and so much wisdom potential.
And maybe that means there is another way.
Maybe we can choose to do the thing that feels hard while also creating safety.
Maybe we can regulate before, during, and after.
Maybe we can stay aware of what is happening within us.
Maybe we can challenge ourselves AND rest.
Maybe we can stretch our capacity without abandoning ourselves in the process.
It doesn’t have to be either/or.
It can be a pendulum swinging gently back and forth.
Say yes to the thing, create safety, do a little more rest, regulate, maybe try again, listen, and adjust.
And then one day, perhaps without even realizing when it happened, the thing that once felt so hard...doesn’t feel so hard anymore.
We do this with different things over and over again, and little by little, we expand our capacity.
Eventually, we may find ourselves living a bigger, richer, fuller, more expansive life.
We’re doing more of the things we want to do—but now we are doing them by choice.
With awareness, with safety, and hopefully, with joy.
That is a VERY different outcome.
Of course, it can also be easy to start feeling better and slip right back into our old patterns. As the saying goes, old habits die hard.
We don’t want to begin expanding our lives only to immediately fill every inch of that new space, through rushing, overbooking, overdoing, trying to make up for lost time, pushing our way through life again.
Because why push our way through life when we can learn to flow with it?
Maybe this journey isn’t about becoming better at forcing ourselves to do hard things.
Maybe it’s about learning that we don’t have to force ourselves at all.
We can choose. We can create safety. We can challenge the stories we’ve attached to the things in front of us.
And we can remind ourselves that something feeling hard today does not mean it will always feel hard.
So, what have you labeled as “hard” that you get to reframe today?
And what have you been avoiding that you might choose to begin stepping into—not by forcing or white-knuckling your way through it, but by bringing safety with you along the way?