When pain comes to visit,
It can overwhelm our senses.
We feel helpless,
Seized by it.
As human beings we have a great capacity to endure pain,
But we are not meant to endure it endlessly.
In the words of Rumi,
The cure for the pain is in the pain.
Our pain contains deep wisdom.
It contains a love waiting to be freed.
A love with the power to transcend our pain and to show us what it is to be fully alive.
Whether our wounds are physical,
Emotional,
Or psychological,
Whether they are newly fresh or unhealed from childhood,
Part of us innately knows how to tend our wounds.
We possess a natural resilience.
Below the surface of our understanding and beneath the level of our control,
Our bodies are engaging us in a natural process of healing and growth.
Most of us have learned to fear pain so much that we will avoid it at all costs.
If we haven't been shown how to process our pain in a safe and healthy and loving way,
We become afraid of it.
We feel unsafe.
We numb ourselves to it.
We live an anesthetized life.
We create a protective shell to prevent us from being hurt.
We may learn to please others or to rebel against them.
We may learn to achieve in the outer world or to escape into an inner world.
We don't learn to heal.
We learn to survive.
Eventually we wake up to an uncomfortable sense of not feeling fully alive,
Of not being fully here.
There is a persistent pain below the surface of who we become.
The light that turns on in our awakening not only shows us the ways in which we've been suffering,
It also illuminates the ground beneath our feet and shows us exactly where we stand.
And when we take a close look,
We begin to see that there are other paths before us besides the one we've been walking.
Instead of walking the path of avoiding or suppressing or denying our pain,
We can learn to bravely approach our resistance with a desire to grow.
When we apprentice ourselves to what is hidden within us,
We become like a new leaf turning toward the sun,
More open,
More capable,
And most of all,
More alive.
When we choose to listen and to be fiercely present with our pain,
We are learning to become a force of love that can transcend it.
Let yourself feel the ground beneath your feet.
Feel how it holds you.
You yourself here,
Like a great oak tree,
A steady presence that withstands and bears witness to all kinds of emotional weather.
The rain will sometimes be relentless and the cold unbearable.
Hail storms will batter your leaves.
High winds will thrash you and rip away branches.
The sun will scorch the soil and you will endure drought and your thirst will be painful.
Yet you are still here,
Deeply rooted to the earth that gives you life.
Stay with the pain.
Instead of rushing to make sense of it,
Open your senses.
Allow yourself to feel.
Let this acceptance of pain be a deep acknowledgement of your true resilience.
Khalil Gibran says that,
Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.
When we feel pain,
We're being prepared to learn something new.
The protective walls we've built around who we've known ourselves to be are being strained from the inside.
Pain is a sign of life,
Of new growth.
Something inside you wants to live and is yearning to break through.
The pain of a breaking shell is preferable to the slow death of the spirit that occurs when we stay in comfort for too long.
And when a part of us breaks,
Whether it's a bone or a heart or a sense of self,
It's going to hurt.
Your heart breaks because it can no longer be contained.
Your need to spread your wings has grown larger and more urgent than the safety of your shell.
Pain asks you to pay attention,
To stay alert.
Don't go back to sleep.
Don't fight against the expansion that will carry you into the next phase of your journey.
There is a greater love alive in you and your pain is here to help.
Bear witness.
You are in a healing process.
Something beautiful is about to emerge.
Something new is about to be born.
