Working with difficulty, who wants to do that? But difficulty is as much part of life as ease and joy are. There’s only one sane choice and that is to face it well. I like to remind myself that any difficulty that comes my way is not punishment. It is life in the raw and asks me to engage with it instead of collapsing.
Phrases posted on Facebook, March 2026
Of course, when difficulty shows up the first automatic response will be one of resistance. We can’t overcome our resistance with mental insistence that what is happening should not be. We need to accept what we are facing. Recognizing the difficulty fully will bring us a little dignity and that is no small thing.
Recognition is vital before any acceptance (recognition is not approval or abdication). We ourselves can’t be recognized without recognizing what also is. After all, everything is hitched to everything else.
To truly recognize a difficulty can be very hard. We will probably need a time out. Shock, pain, loss and fear need space and tender companionship. At the very least we can put a hand on our hearts and collect whatever bit of courage we have. Even a little time out for self-consolation can help. It will be heart to heart time with ourselves and/or with friends who are suffering.
Pausing for self-consolation while suffering through difficulty can help us keep going. If rushing thoughts about what to do or not do come to be overwhelming to us, a clear NOT NOW spoken with authority clears the moment so we can be present to ourselves.
That authority in our tone will help us see the next sane, compassionate things we can be about.
When we find ourselves with two seemingly opposite desires, that is difficult indeed. Some examples: I want to lose weight and I love to eat. I want to be kind and I am irritated by little things all the time. You know this kind of combo, I am sure. The tension is there. Think of it as a finely tuned guitar string. Best to let it vibrate and try not to solve anything. My experience has been that solutions arrive by being in the tension not avoiding it.
It seems that almost every life has what I call a “recurring difficulty” . . . something that keeps cropping up to be dealt with. We might hate this bête noire at our peril because when we take it up, we most often find our buried wholeness and freedom in the very thing that has us by the little hairs.
Have you ever been on a walk and your socks have somehow picked up some sticky, scratchy seeds that cling voraciously to the fabric and won’t let go? For me, that’s what a recurring difficulty is like. I know that such cling-expert seeds are simply hitching a ride to find a better place where they might be able to grow . . . not on my socks but somewhere propitious! The lesson for me regarding a persistent difficulty is to let go of a sense of personal responsibility. For a time (sometimes a long time) the difficulty is attached to me, but I don’t need to be attached to it. If I think of it as hitching a ride, I can act with more freedom and certainty.
When something difficult looms on our “to do” list, procrastination hovers like a cloud over our heads like over Pig Pen in the Peanuts cartoon. Another cup of coffee . . .a few more emails . . . a walk? We need a nickel to pay Lucy to kick us in the pants. We are making difficulty more difficult and soon we’ll be in the doghouse with Snoopy. We all know this, and it is tax prep time besides! No more blathering, time to simply start whatever it is that’s ours to do. Delay can be costly.
Difficulties abound but so does grace, and sometimes they are the same thing. Many times, in my practice I have heard people say that a difficulty they had to deal with became the turning point that led them to a better life.
The wonderful Vietnamese meditation teacher, Thich Nhat Hahn, told a student who had great difficulty with anger to hold it like a baby and speak to it with kindness: “Oh my little anger, I will care for you. I won’t let you suffer alone. I will hold you close, etc.” After a time of practicing this the anger began to melt. Self-kindness is very powerful when dealing with difficulty.
Remember the children’s picture book, The Little Engine that Could? The message was, “I think I can”. Isn’t it that thought that is key when dealing with difficulty? That our attitude detracts or aids our actions is awesome and not to be ignored.
That which forces us into engagement and brings us to real change shouldn’t be called by just one name, “difficulty”. It can also be called “opportunity”. We are so much bigger than our troubles.
Some people hang on to difficulties and return to them in their minds as if the old pains confirm who they are. What we keep thinking has a way of manifesting. It will be Spring soon, so why not open the windows and let new, fresh air in.
Do difficulties come in packs like feral dogs? Blessings gather like flocks of geese and spread their wings over us. Since neither is permanent, we simply find ourselves in the flow of life’s river doing the best swimming we can do. I’m checking on my backstroke.
It’s the last day of March and continues to be chilly here in RI. That, however, is not stopping the crocuses and the daffodils. The urge to live and blossom continues despite the cold. I want to remember that when things aren’t the way I want them to be.
