by Craig Harper
When I tell people that hard doesn’t really exist until we decide it does, they doubt my sanity. Sadly, we are ‘trained’ from an early age that some things are destined to be hard (marriage, staying in shape, making money, climbing a mountain) and some things are destined to be easy (getting in trouble, failing). As I’ve said before, things happen (to us, around us, despite us) and then we give those things (situations, events, circumstances) a label. And, when we name them, we make them a specific (determined-by-us) reality. We breathe life into them. Give them power. That is, they become a literal experience (for us). A very real self-created experience.
The Power is in the Name
When I label something ‘hard’ (and I believe it), I create a physical, emotional and psychological response. I turn on a switch. I create a negative power shift. An internal shift. I hand over (some of) my power to that (allegedly hard) thing. The moment I decide that tomorrow will be a bad day, is the moment that a ‘bad day’ becomes likely. Why? Because I create my own experiences. Constantly. Consciously or not.
For one person, the key message in the above paragraph will be empowering while for another, it will be complete crap. Interestingly, they will both be right. ;)
Same but Different
It’s fascinating to watch a group of people all doing (what appears to be) the same thing at the same time… all having different individual experiences. It might seem reasonable to assume that a group of people all doing the same hike, along the same track, in the same weather conditions, at the same time, will all have the same experience.
Wrong.
Of course, each person will have a different experience because they will individually process, filter, interpret, cope, react and interact uniquely according to their own (self-created) reality: the window from which they view the world. And the experience pool from which they draw their conclusions, make their assumptions and find their labels.
Seeing Is Not Being
To the casual observer, it might seem that the participants in the group all had the same experience but the observer is not the experiencer. All the observer sees is the external stuff: the weather conditions, the track, the gradient of the mountains, the mud, the speed of the walkers and the distance covered. While the external stuff can have an impact on each individual experience (natch), it doesn’t determine it. If it did, each walker would have an identical experience and inhabit the same reality.
And how boring would that be?
One Hike, Thirty-Five Experiences
Some people found the hiking element of our weekend program hard. Some found it easy. One woman cried (with joy) and told the group it was a spiritual experience for her to be in the middle of such natural beauty. For some, it was a psychological challenge, for others not. Some were hot, some cold. Some were intimidated, some excited. Some anxious, some relaxed. Some came to learn, some came to be inspired, some came to connect and some came to face their fears. Some came to do the whole lot!
We can break our overall experiences down and find many sub-experiences. For example: for Sally, running a marathon might be a painful experience physically but a joyful experience psychologically. It might also be a life-changing experience emotionally and an enjoyable experience socially. For Sally, the marathon will mean whatever she determines it means.
Like Sally, you and I create our own experiences every day. Every minute. Consciously or not. Intentionally or not. Good and bad. Hard and easy. Lessons and problems. Painful and joyful.
One of the key challenges of the personal growth journey is to create our own experiences intentionally. To be more aware and more conscious. To manage (our internal environment) rather than be managed (by our external environment).
Whoever said “life is what we make it” was a cool cat.
What type of experiences are you creating?
