When I feel like giving up, the following thoughts tend to help. I hope you find something in them for yourself.

1. Everyone is struggling.

Everyone. It may seem like some people have it easy. It may be true that others don’t have your particular set of mental, emotional, financial, relational, spiritual, physical or other challenges.

They have their own. Who or whatever created the universe and life in it did not discriminate when it comes to suffering. Everyone has a share of it. The rich and the poor, famous and inconspicuous, the powerful and the weak….are all susceptible.

People who are thought to ‘have it all’ often cause of shock and dismay when we learn of their troubles, frequently after a drug overdose or suicide.

When you see people smiling, laughing, celebrating and carrying on, seemingly without a care in the world, you’re seeing a snapshot of their lives, a brief moment that means less than nothing.

You’re not seeing their struggle. And they are not seeing yours. Their challenges are as real to them as yours are to you.

Takeaway: You’re not alone in your despair.

2. You are stronger than you think.

You may not be in touch with your strength in this moment, but it’s there. Think of all you’ve been through. And here you are, reading this post, searching for hope and strength. Your willingness to search for helpful information is, in and of itself, a source of courage and hope.

All is not lost. Not even close. You’re a survivor. You may have been through hell. You may be going through hell. Yet, here you are, seeking, learning and continuing on. This is strength, and it lives within you.

Takeaway: You’re showing your strength in this moment. Be encouraged.

3. This is a cliche’, but that doesn’t make it less true.

There are those who are worse off. You and I may be suffering, but someone in the world right now, in this very moment, is suffering more . Children are being tortured and murdered. Innocents are being sold into slavery, trafficked among the nations by rogue terrorist groups and sociopaths who profit by using the bodies of their fellow human beings as mere products.

For millions of people on this earth – and billions before them – life is a short-lived hell with a violent but welcomed ending. It’s overwhelming to consider how animalistic so many of us are to each other.

Takeaway: If you are sitting in a physically safe place, reading an article on a computer screen, you are one of the luckiest people who has ever lived.

4. You are not your programming.

When you were born, you were a blank bio-slate, waiting to learn what you were. Others were there to teach you. Those others, your parents, family and friends, sent you consistent messages about who you are, based on who you were to them.

If those messages were painful, then you suffered that pain. And you may have buried your pain as deeply as you possibly could. No one wants to believe they are the evil messages they received as a child.

The good news is that, of course, you are not. Think about it. The people who taught you that you were bad, worthless, unworthy of love….what credibility do they have? These were people who felt bad, worthless and unworthy of love themselves. And they blindly – thoughtlessly – passed their own programming on to you.

Reject that programming. It’s not credible. Who are they to tell you what you are worth? Who are they to determine who you are? What great wisdom did they possess that allowed them to determine the quality of your life? If you were to get to the bottom of it all, you’d find nothing there. You were given negative messages by people who were living on autopilot, not even aware of their own motives.

Takeaway: As an adult, you have the opportunity to learn to program yourself. You can work on choosing what to believe about yourself and reject the old, outdated and inaccurate messages given to you by people who were basically clueless.

5. It’s just self-sabotage.

The part of you that wants to give up may be overwhelmed at how difficult life is. You may feel helpless and hopeless, as if all your efforts in life have been in vain.

Failure is just part of the deal. It goes with being human. If you amplify your failures and remind yourself of them continually, you’ll surely feel hopeless. This is one form of self-sabotage. It’s common.

The hope for self-sabotage comes in recognizing its pervasive nature and naming it. When you name your self-sabotage, you separate yourself from it. If you step back just a bit and see how you are piling on pain, you may decide one day that you no longer need to do that.

You are not your self-sabotage. Self-sabotage comes from messages that you grew attached to long ago, before you knew what you were doing. How could you not get attached to them? You were a blank bio-slate ready for programming. The information dumped into you was just what you got. Now, that bad information is sabotaging you.

If there is one psychological concept you should understand deeply, it’s self-sabotage. We all get in our own way…constantly. Learn how self-sabotage works in your psyche and how to end it. This free video is an excellent place to begin .

Takeaway: You are not the problem. Self-sabotage is the problem. Self-sabotage comes from being psychologically attached to negative messages and allowing them to play out in present day life. You can move beyond self-sabotage, however, and claim a new way of being….one that does not include negativity from the past. It’s possible.

I hope you’ve found these thoughts helpful. Don’t stop here . Keep searching for answers. They’re all around. Are you open to believing them? Part of you is, or you may not have read this far. Congratulations for that, for it is all the hope in the world.

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