We each have our inner struggles that seem to start from childhood. We struggle with school, and the need to be accepted.

As we get older, we look back on those early struggles and smile thinking that our present struggles are much greater, not realising that the anxiousness and fear was just as great then as our struggles are today.

The inner struggles are usually caused by decision-making issues, without options or alternatives our struggles would not exist.

There are very few guarantees in life it is always a matter of probabilities

We seem to dwell on the disadvantages, even though the optimistic advantages we could receive are every bit as real as the negative side. We need to focus and identify with the positive aspects of the struggles we are experiencing.

Often we resolve our inner struggles by making a decision to do what we feel we ought to do instead of what we want to do. This then leads to further inner struggles to try to counteract what we have done.

Things that have happened in our past have a significant influence on our decisions, we need to stay in the present moment and plan the future. Past failures have a lesson in them we just need to look at the lesson and learn from it.

If we focus on the hurt, we will continue to suffer, if we focus on the lesson we will continue to grow.

There is an old saying, ‘Your worst battle is between what you know and what you feel.’

There are times in our life when we feel as if we are the only person that goes through these turmoils, we often feel ‘why me’. We do not realise that when we look at others, we only see what they portray to the outside world.

I have suffered from these inner struggles all my life and I thought that I was the only person that had this problem. I would lie awake at night worrying about things like school, work, how I looked, if people would like me, would I do a good enough job, and the list goes on.

Then one day as I was leaving a mothers club meeting one of the ladies stopped me and asked me. “How do you manage to be so calm and able to handle situations as they present themselves? I couldn’t do it. I would be so nervous.”

I was so surprised by her remark, I realised that maybe I was not alone with these insecurities. I began to look at them in a different light, I started to analyse how and why I did this to myself.

I still have my inner struggles but now I think about the changes in my life that cause these inner struggles and I realise that to change I put myself out of my comfort zone. If I want to change and grow I will most likely always have these inner struggles.

Facing these struggles and working through them is what strengthens our character and makes us become the person we are today.

– Nancy