Pain... What is pain?
Physical pain, well, I’m pretty sure we’ve all experienced that. Falling down as a child and grazing our knees, falling down as an adult and grazing our knees! We feel the pain and we rush to find someone to tell, someone to help us ease the pain. We tell people over and over about the physical feeling of pain at every opportunity. It’s something we are open about and don’t feel the need to hide it away.
Now, what about mental pain? Those feelings of anger, sadness, fear, hurt and guilt. That feeling of not “being good enough”, of “feeling ugly”, of feeling “always failing”... Do we rush to tell everyone about that and look for that person to help us? Do we tell everyone whenever we get the chance?
Or do we hide it away, ashamed of anyone finding out just what a struggle life is. Worried that people might find out that we haven’t got all our shit together and that daily life is something we drag ourselves through with a forced smile on our face until we can plonk down in front of the tv on a night and eat rubbish whilst watching rubbish, washing it all down with a bottle of wine... Or two...
Our social media feeds full of all those ‘happy’ friends and family members all loving life... Why can’t I look like her? Why am I not able to lose weight like she can? Why am I not on a beach somewhere like they are? Why is everyone so much better than me?
Our thoughts bombarding us with negative self talk making us sink lower until we go to bed to then get up and repeat the same pattern the next day.
Pain is a natural feeling. One that, as humans, we naturally should feel and also one that we try to avoid at all costs. We buy into the consumer culture thinking that if we have the latest iPhone, that pair of jeans, that new car, we will be happy and free from the internal pain. We over eat, we drink, we smoke, we take drugs - anything to distract and numb the feeling of pain. Consumerism distracts us from the real issues that are going on in our minds. We believe we need ‘things’ to make us happy and when we get them, we are confused that those negative feelings are still there? But why? We have bought those jeans that were meant to fill that void? How is that I’m still sad? We develop coping strategies for problems instead of dealing with them.
What if I said that to feel pain is magic and to continue suffering was tragic?
What if asked you to free yourself from the fear of pain rather than the pain itself. To experience pain in all its glory. To let the emotions that lead to pain come, happen and then be released? To deal with the emotions of anger, sadness, fear, hurt and guilt there and then so they don’t become stuck inside of you with all their negative energy building leaving us to carry them around.
Don’t avoid pain. Pain is what you need to evolve and become. Pain is where we learn, pain is a driver to level up, pain is how we grow. By understanding that there are ways of using pain for the good allows us to become better human beings, to become our best selves.
Let the pain burn you down, not to stay there but to rise again with the learnings and experience to take you forward. How long you choose to stay down is up to you. Your choice. No one keeps you down, only you make that decision and only you decide when it’s time to rise and start living with the new learnings and new behaviours that will drive you forward rather than hold you back.
You can either be defined by your vision of the future or live by the memories of the past - allow pain to shape your future in a positive way instead of dragging it with you from the past.
I used to believe it was up to everyone else to take my pain away, to keep me happy and to make sure I was ok. When the understanding came that this was solely my responsibility, I became free to live. Once you know that inside of you, you have the power to be happy in a split second if you choose to, life becomes so much easier. Change your thoughts internally and watch your external world change. To change your personal reality, you must change your personality. Your reality will change once you change your behaviours.
Teach your body new ways to be by changing those negative thoughts, actions and behaviours. If drinking makes you feel shit, stop drinking! If eating crappy food makes you feel shit, stop buying and eating it! If Facebook makes you feel shit, stop going on it!
New thoughts, new choices, new behaviours, new experiences, new emotions - all of these teach your mind and body a new way of being. A new perspective on life. A new way to live. Your physical environment and those in it may not change, but your perspective towards it will, allowing you to be free to enjoy things day to day. How you think and feel creates your world and your way of living.
We all talk about having a super power and what it would be. Well, you’ve already got one! Your mind... It is your most powerful super power, use it positively to its full potential and your world will change and become so much more 🌎
You are wonderful. You are strong. You are brave.
You are YOU ♥️