Some of the hardest fights in life happen where no one else can see them.
This week is about old wounds, survival mode, choosing yourself, and finding a gentler way forward.
Here is what has been on my mind this week:
The Fight With Yourself
The Wound You Reopen
Choosing Yourself
When Life Becomes Too Comfortable
Keeping Your Word When Exhausted
Survival Mode
Forgiving Yourself
1. The Fight With Yourself
Why would you fight with yourself?
I am not talking about physical fighting. This is a purely psychological fight that many people face every day.
Maybe the better question is not why, but how.
There are plenty of reasons you might fight yourself, but in the end, there is no point.
There is no point in fighting with yourself because it leads nowhere.
Understanding and acceptance are the keys to solving internal problems.
Someone might disagree with this because sometimes it feels like fighting part of yourself is necessary to get things done or create some kind of behavior change.
But my question is whether you are really fighting, or whether you are forgiving yourself and finding the understanding that then powers the change.
Let’s say someone is overweight and wants to start working out to become healthier and feel better about how they look.
If you fight with yourself and use negative self-talk to power the change, it can also have the opposite effect.
But if you accept the truth that you are overweight and want to do something to change it, you can understand the situation.
Change is born from that understanding and acceptance.
It does not happen so clearly that you can identify all these phases while they are happening.
But the process is there.
To be clear, just thinking about change is not going to change anything.
The work and a little sweat are still part of it.
2. The Wound You Reopen
Have you ever noticed that we tend to reopen our old wounds ourselves?
I was wondering why it is like that.
Why can certain thoughts cause so much pain in such a short period of time?
Or why do certain people trigger things inside me so quickly and intensely?
But then I ask myself whether it is really the outside world or my internal interpretation that causes all of it.
Sometimes it feels like these moments come from nowhere at the speed of light.
Boom. Suddenly, you are swimming in this overwhelming field of negative energy.
How do you cope with situations like this?
3. Choosing Yourself
How would you describe a moment when you chose yourself?
Sometimes it is really hard because you do not want to disappoint others, but at the same time, you also do not want to please everyone.
If you tend to choose yourself all the time, people might call you selfish.
But my question is: How can you grow in life and build something meaningful without looking after yourself?
A big part of this in my case is that I tend to please others.
I am actively working on getting better at saying no and really thinking about when I want to say yes.
It is not only about saying yes to everything.
It is also about agreeing to things you disagree with.
It is like having this habit or reflex during a conversation.
Someone says something, and your brain agrees almost without thinking.
Only a couple of seconds later, you realize that it is not something you agree with.
All these moments, and many others, show the importance of choosing yourself.
4. When Life Becomes Too Comfortable
Sometimes I forget how comfortable life is.
We live in a world where upgrading our lives has become a trend.
All of us upgrade our lives with gadgets, supplements, AI, and much more.
Each of us has different reasons, but the effect can make us too comfortable in daily life.
Not all of us have a lot of money, but food is available almost everywhere, or it can be delivered to our doorsteps.
There are Chinese websites that make it feel like you can buy almost anything for a few cents.
Here is a simple exercise.
When you look around, which things are inseparable from your life, and which are just nice to have?
You might be surprised by how many things are not necessary for your life at all. You are simply used to them.
5. Keeping Your Word When Exhausted
Pain is inevitable.
Pain takes many forms, but everyone experiences it.
One of the biggest pains in human life is the pain of regret.
It is the regret of leaving potential on the table instead of pursuing the unknown.
Part of this is keeping your word to yourself.
If I say I am going to do something, I better do it.
While writing this, I am exhausted from the last couple of days, so my energy is almost nonexistent.
Still, I need to show up for myself and do what I said I would do: write my 100 words.
6. Survival Mode
Have you ever been stuck in survival mode?
Maybe you are asking what survival mode is in the first place.
Everyone can describe it differently.
My description sounds like this:
Survival mode is a prolonged period in life when money is usually tight.
Monthly spending is focused almost entirely on essentials such as rent, food, and other bills, with very little or almost no money left for anything else.
It is a grind without return. It is having three jobs and still being in survival mode. It is tough.
The transition from surviving to actually living can happen in two stages.
First, you learn how to manage your money so well that you can put some aside even in survival mode and spend some on fun too.
Your understanding of life and your values change. You live more peacefully and enjoy more of the simple things.
Second, you survive this mode and manage to build yourself up enough to change your life to the point where money is no longer a problem.
You also understand that money does not define happiness in life.
Just because you were in survival mode once and got out does not necessarily mean you cannot go back to that state.
Sometimes you go through it again and learn another lesson.
By no means do I wish for anyone to go through this.
I have gone through a couple of survival periods myself.
Each taught me something different.
It is not that I would like to be in those situations, but I have always managed to get out as well.
Life is almost like a sinusoid. One moment you are up, and a second later, you can be down.
What I learned from this is that you cannot count on life always staying the same.
Being able to adjust to a situation and stay hopeful through your days is key to surviving any period of life.
7. Forgiving Yourself
Have you forgiven yourself?
In each of our lives, there is something holding us back, something that still holds power over us.
It can stay there until you forgive yourself.
Maybe it is something you did when you were young, forgot about, and then found haunting you again later in adult life.
Maybe it is a relationship you ended in a way that was not fair.
Maybe it is a failure at work that you have not processed.
There are countless situations in a person’s life that need understanding and genuine care before they can be resolved.
It might not be something at the forefront of your mind.
Our minds are great at playing tricks on us, and sometimes they hide things from us too.
Just as our deepest fears can be buried in our minds, so can all the things we have not forgiven ourselves for.
I am no exception.
I have needed to go through the process of forgiving myself a couple of times in my life.
It is not always as simple as finding something that bothers you, telling yourself it is okay, and watching it go away.
Sometimes I need to come back to the same thing again and again and have a deep conversation with myself.
You return to it, understand it again, and slowly forgive yourself one more time.
It is like sitting down with a friend and telling him, “It is okay. You can let go now.”
You can be patient with yourself throughout this process.
Working through something hurtful takes time.
Is there something you would like to forgive yourself for?
I aim to deliver the most personal stories, insights, and lessons from real-world experiences I have lived through over the past decade.
As I continue building my life and trying to be a better version of myself, I am documenting this journey and the lessons from my life for people who might need to hear them.
Lukáš