On Pain...

'Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.' Kahlil Gibran

'Pain is a part of life. Sometimes it’s a big part, and sometimes it isn’t, but either way, it’s a part of the big puzzle, the deep music, the great game. Pain does two things: It teaches you, tells you that you’re alive. Then it passes away and leaves you changed. It leaves you wiser, sometimes. Sometimes it leaves you stronger. Either way, pain leaves its mark, and everything important that will ever happen to you in life is going to involve it in one degree or another.'

Jim Butcher

 I came across the above passage earlier tonight and the words ring so true to me. It is actually something that I had already been reflecting upon over the last few days anyway.

 Don't be afraid to feel pain. You can learn so much from it...

Unfortunately it seems that these days we are bombarded by messages that seem to be telling us that we should be 'happy', confident and filled with positivity.

There is no time for feeling sad, unhappy or angry.

We live in a world where we expect things to happen so quickly that we become frustrated and impatient when things take longer than we'd  hoped - whether it's waiting for a pizza to be delivered, or waiting for a reply to an email or text message. We aren't prepared to wait, so fast is the pace of life nowadays.

The same seems to be true when it comes to working through our emotions. People want to be feeling better as soon as possible - they want to be seen to be happy and strong and coping.

This piles extra pressure (both internally and externally) onto people who are already feeling low and quite possibly quite fragile too. Feelings get pushed aside and covered up, or ignored, rather than the time being taken to really explore, understand, accept, experience and most importantly to actually feel those feelings and learn from them.

The trouble is, in putting off actually feeling these feelings, the opportunity to learn from them is missed. The feelings get bottled up and up until the day comes that they all come bursting out in sometimes quite an alarming way. And then it takes a lot longer to sift through them all.

It's much more effective and healthy (and natural) to feel the feelings as and when they arise, rather than pushing them away. It seems that  lot of people out there are actually afraid of their feelings - afraid they might get swallowed up by them, worried that they might lose themselves and that they might never be able to find themselves again...

And this is actually quite true...

In immersing yourself in the feelings of pain and loss and grief, you can feel as if you're drowning and lost and it is scary, and it's true that you might not find yourself again, because when you emerge again, you are a different you. Your pain has had an impact upon you, it will have changed you and taught you and the chances are that you won't be quite the same as you were before.

But you will have changed in positive ways.

Rather than becoming hard, angry, bitter, resentful, angry, depressed and/or withdrawn as a result of hiding your feelings away, in embracing your feelings the chances are you'll become wiser, stronger, calmer, and more open than before, with a sense of inner peace and wisdom and the courage and confidence to be able to face and accept whatever challenges present themselves to you in the future.

 'Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding' (Kahlil Gibran)

...feeling that pain is like finding the key to unlock the heavy gates and chains around your heart and soul... Let its voice be heard - your inner voice, your inner wisdom - it is waiting to guide you forward - through the pain and beyond, to a life that is filled with a deep sense of calm, acceptance and inner peace....