Are You Addicted to Struggle?
If life always feels like an uphill battle, you might assume it is just the season you’re in. Work demands, relationship pressures, and personal challenges; these are all very real.
But sometimes, the pattern of struggle is not coming from the outside but rather from within.
I work with many clients who, without realising it, are addicted to struggle. Ease feels unfamiliar. Rest feels unsafe. Success feels uncomfortable, and so they unconsciously pull themselves back into the fight.
If this rings a bell somewhere inside, keep reading.
Why struggle can feel safer than ease
For many people, the story of life is one of overcoming. Childhood adversity, early career pressures, and cultural expectations all contribute to a nervous system wired for effort and survival.
When you are used to constantly fighting for the next goal, being still or feeling like you have your life together does not feel natural. In fact, it can feel quite threatening and scary!
Here is how it often shows up:
You create unnecessary drama in relationships when things are going well.
You take on extra projects when you promised yourself you would rest.
You dismiss achievements or immediately focus on the next challenge.
You downplay or distrust moments of genuine happiness.
You self-sabotage through drinking, overeating, or overspending when life starts to feel calm.
In these moments, it is not that you want to struggle. It is that the part of you wired for survival cannot yet tolerate ease.
The somatic layer of this pattern
Stay with me here. This is not just a mindset issue. It lives in the body.
If your nervous system is used to operating at a high level of arousal, stillness will feel like free-fall. You may experience anxiety, agitation, or a creeping sense of "something is wrong" when things are actually fine.
In Internal Family Systems (IFS), we would say that certain parts of you have learned that struggle equals safety. They believe their role is to keep you moving, fighting, proving, and surviving.
Through Brainspotting and somatic work, I help clients access and work with these deep body-held patterns. Change comes not from convincing yourself to relax, but from helping your system learn that it is safe to do so.
What to reflect on
If you suspect that struggle has become part of your identity, try sitting with these questions:
How do I really feel when life is calm? Is there a part of me that mistrusts what iis going on?
Where do I create or seek out new struggles when old ones resolve?
What would it mean to live with more calm and less fight? What part of me fears that?
Final thought
Most of us are so used to swimming against the current that we no longer recognise when the tide is turning in our favour. Struggle has become the water that we swim in, and we see it as normal. It’s not.
There is another way. It starts by noticing the pattern, not judging it. And by giving yourself permission to build a life that includes time to recognise when things are going well, not just effort.
If you would like support in exploring this, you can book a call with me here. You do not have to stay locked in the cycle.
