“Pain is a pesky part of being human, I’ve learned it feels like a stab wound to the heart, something I wish we could all do without, in our lives here. Pain is a sudden hurt that can’t be escaped. But then I have also learned that because of pain, I can feel the beauty, tenderness, and freedom of healing. The pain feels like a fast stab wound to the heart. But then healing feels like the wind against your face when you are spreading your wings and flying through the air! We may not have wings growing out of our backs, but healing is the closest thing that will give us that wind against our faces.”―C. JoyBell C.
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/wisdom-quotes
If you spend any time reading through other blogs in the WordPress.com blogosphere, you see a great many people in pain. Mental pain, physical pain, the pain of loss, the pain of failure, the pain of addiction, the pain of poverty, and so many other types of pain.
We all experience pain in our lives. Without pain, we cannot feel its opposite—pleasure. Both have to exist for us to feel one or the other. The same goes for beauty and ugliness, love and hate, laughter and crying. These opposites are here so we can distinguish one from the other. Once we have learned what pain is, we tend to run from it and pursue pleasure.
Pain is a double-edged sword. Wallow in it and you are in hell. Use it and you can sometimes find a way out of it. Pain identifies when I’m at my limit in the gym. Pain tells me I should be careful with my back. Pain tells me what I’ve lost and to treasure regaining that again in the future. Pain teaches me contentment when the pleasure returns.
Pain, like pleasure, is fleeting. Pain and pleasure revolve around each other. They are finite. They come and go.
Don’t get me wrong. I realize there are some folks out there whose pain is so deep that the only escape is medication and psychological help of one sort or another. I am not trying to minimize this.
The pains we feel in life are teachers. There is a saying, “Things are not done to us but for us.” – Harold Klemp. Pain can be a great teacher.
Have you ever come out of a challenging situation in your life and failed to learn something? I, like most, have had my share of troubles. When I go back through my journal and read some of those entries, I am almost brought back to that point instantly, reliving the pain, the fear, and the absolute despair I was experiencing at the time.
When I take the time to really examine these periods, from a more balanced and neutral point of view, I can see the lessons that I learned from those experiences materialize. If I had not gone through what I did, I wouldn’t have learned what I now know. In fact, my greatest learnings over my lifetime have been initiated by painful circumstances, painful relationships, or painful experiences. I am not advocating that you seek out pain to learn, just to be aware that when life gets hard or you are presented with a problem that appears to be unsolvable that there is a way out. “There is always a way.” – Harold Klemp.
For those of you who are experiencing loss. For those of you who are experiencing physical pain. For those of you afflicted with mental pain of any type, I send you good thoughts. I hope your pain passes. I hope that one day you can regain some semblance of normalcy in your life.
Until next time…
Dave
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