EduVerse Lesson Plan - Issue 12 - Listening Exercise

We all have struggles in life, and everyone is fighting their own battles. Instead of seeing problems as negative, we should view them as gifts that teach us lessons and help us grow. The point of life is to experience both the highs and lows, as it is through overcoming challenges that we appreciate the good times. It's important to differentiate between external challenges, which are out of our control, and internal challenges, which are self-imposed. Internal challenges, such as self-criticism and self-doubt, can be more impactful and require awareness to overcome. Life is not perfect, but it is the imperfections and our ability to overcome that make it meaningful. We're all struggling with something in life. Regardless of what someone's life looks like on the outside, each person is fighting their own battle. One of my favorite concepts is, your problems are your gifts. Instead of seeing problems as negative and something to avoid, accept your challenges and problems as your gifts. They're here to teach you a lesson, help you grow stronger, and help you evolve into the person you're meant to be. Without them, we wouldn't be able to grow into our best selves. The point of life isn't to avoid struggle or pain, but to experience all of it, the good and the bad, the highs and the lows. In short, it's because you've experienced the lows that you can deeply appreciate the highs. Still, we want to overcome challenges with grace and not make it any more difficult than it has to be. So it's important to make a distinction between external challenges and internal challenges. External challenges are challenges that come from sources outside of our control. It's the challenges that life throws at us. If we overcome them, we become a stronger, more refined version of ourselves as a result. And remember, although we can't control what happens to us, we can always choose how we respond. We can respond by being frustrated and angry at our problem, or we can choose to see it as an opportunity to learn and grow. It is that choice that makes all the difference. Internal challenges come from our own selves. These are the struggles that are self-imposed consciously or unconsciously, like self-criticism, self-doubt, or self-sabotage. These are the struggles with the mind, and sometimes have the power to affect us more deeply than external challenges do, because they are never-ending. Events will pass, but the thoughts and feelings we have about them could linger if we allow them to. These are the challenges that we must become aware of because they cause us more suffering than necessary. We can't expect ourselves to be perfect, and we can't expect life to be perfect either. It's the imperfections that make life more interesting anyway, and it's the fact that we've overcome so much that makes life more meaningful.