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“Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. What makes life difficult is that the process of confronting and solving problems is a painful one.” ~M. Scott Peck
So often in life we face problems that bring feelings of overwhelm, confusion, frustration or anger. What do we choose to do when we feel these uncomfortable emotions?
In this podcast you’ll learn about four stay-at-home moms just like you. Women who are smart, pretty, and gifted. Women who love their children and what to be good moms. Unfortunately, though, when life got challenging, they chose to run away, rather than face their problems head-on. This habit of running away, chosen over and over again, created lives for them that were even worse than the original problems they ran away from.
In our modern, face-paced world there are countless escapes we can choose rather than searching for solutions, conquering our challenges and becoming the heroes of our own stories. Yet, feeling proud of who we are and the life we’ve lived is how we all want to feel.
Join Audrey this week as she shares the stories of these moms who chose to run away and the disastrous effects for them and their families. Consider with her how even the seemingly innocent behaviors–reading, vacationing, watching TV, social media–can easily become distractions that keep us stuck. Then look closely at the truth about problems and how they can actually become great blessings–giving our lives real meaning and deep purpose.
Listener’s Guide:
Use the time stamps below to skip to any part of the podcast.
3:45 We are All Tempted to Run Away – Three Stories
4:26 Story One – Alice
9:08 Story Two – Felice
13:25 Story Three – Jennie Lee
17:32 Are You Running Away with an Emotional Distraction
21:32 Problems = Pain and Problem Solving
23:51 A Helpful Way to Think About Problems
28:13 A Final Message and Challenge
29:19 Tiffany – Facing Our Problems
Quotes from this episode:
“Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult-once we truly understand and accept it-then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters.” ~M. Scott Peck, M.D.
“Life is a series of problems. Do we want to moan about them or solve them? Discipline is the basic set of tools we require to solve life’s problems. Without discipline, we can solve nothing. With only some discipline we can solve only some problems. With total discipline, we can solve all problems.” ~M. Scott Peck, M.D.
“What makes life difficult is that the process of confronting and solving problems is a painful one. Problems, depending upon their nature, evoke in us frustration or grief or sadness or loneliness or guilt or regret or anger or fear or anxiety or anguish or despair. These are uncomfortable feelings, often very uncomfortable, often as painful as any kind of physical pain, sometimes equaling the very worst kind of physical pain. Indeed, it is because of the pain that events or conflicts engender in us that we call them problems. And since life poses an endless series of problems, life is always difficult and is full of pain as well as joy.
“Yet it is in this whole process of meeting and solving problems that life has its meaning. Problems are the cutting edge that distinguishes between success and failure. Problems call forth our courage and our wisdom; indeed, they create our courage and our wisdom. It is only because of problems that we grow mentally and spiritually. When we desire to encourage the growth of the human spirit, we challenge and encourage the human capacity to solve problems, just as in school we deliberately set problems for our children to solve.” ~M. Scott Peck, M.D.
“Addiction is always a way of quickly changing our emotions so we don’t have to deal with the discomfort of uncomfortable emotions and situations.” ~Audrey Rindlisbacher
“Short term distractions, even when they are innocent, can become compulsions. They are always a bad idea. You can bury yourself in excessive reading, TV watching, vacationing, etc., ever running away from the problems in your life that need solving.” ~Audrey Rindlisbacher
“Meeting your needs is the first and most important front for being able to manage the problems in your life more effectively.” ~Audrey Rindlisbacher
“The more worth solving the problem is, the more worth living our life is. The bigger the problem that we solve, the bigger the influence we have.” ~Audrey Rindlisbacher
“Our greatest desire, greater even than the desire for happiness, is that our lives mean something. This desire for meaning is the originating impulse of story. We tell stories because we hope to find or create significant connections between things. Stories link past, present, and future in a way that tells us where we have been (even before we were born), where we are, and where we could be going. Our stories teach us that there is a place for us that we fit, they suggest to us that our lives can have a plot. Stories turn mere chronology, one thing after another, into the purposeful action of plots, and thereby into meaning. If we discern a plot in our lives we are more likely to take ourselves and our lives seriously.” ~Daniel Taylor
“Healthy stories challenge us to be active characters, not passive victims or observers. Both the present and the future are determined by our choices and choice is the essence of character. If we see ourselves as active characters in our own stories, we can exercise our human freedom to choose a present and future for ourselves and those we love that gives life meaning.” ~Daniel Taylor
“Your problems make you who you are.” ~Audrey Rindlisbacher
“I want to get the message out that you don’t have to live in shame and secrecy.” ~Alice
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