On Pain | Khalil Gibran

Here's a wonderful parable by the great Kahlil Gibran, from his work The Prophet. Accepting your pain instead of resisting, denying, or demonizing it creates a space for conscious choice to come through: to suffer or to abide with awareness, and learn.

Gibran urges us to meet our pain with clarity and curiosity, asking ourselves what is being revealed within us when pain cracks open our narratives, routines, and sense of self, much as the stone of fruit is cracked open by the forces of nature. To relate to the Unseen is to relate to our pain: We can trust it or resist it. Either way, there is no way to avoid it, which is ultimately the best reason to absorb the full force of our reality so that we can meet it with presence and authority rather than be pulled under by the changing tides of our lives.

Kahlil Gibran, was a Lebanese-American writer, poet, and visual artist in the Sufi / Christian mystic tradition. Photo by Tommy van Kessel.