No Pain No Gain?

To feel no pain. A litany lived by many. Stay safe, we think.
We might try to hide. But pain rebirths itself in every cell of our bodies from time to time. We have no choice, it decides when to enter our lives.

Portlandia, Portland Oregon

We tend to hear the word pain and feel that it is associated with loss. Rivers of tears, darkened nights, the boundless echoes of thunder. The Unknown, that scary, uncomfortable place. But what of the other kind of pain?

The one that delivers your child, the breaking of your heart with utter joy when you witness the sunshine bouncing off the new hairs after chemo, the expanding of your dinner table as a loved one introduces someone who makes them sing with delight? Pain, yes. Because behind this feeling you know you are given a gift, and that someday it could be taken away. It is the pain of recognition that changes you.

So how do we hold on to the sheer expanse of those special moments?

This “painless woman” might be brave in her surgery but would she also attempt starting a new business or leaving an abusive husband? Physical pain hurts but emotional and mental pain can destroy. Would this person who doesn't fear a fall on slippery streets or tackling a half-marathon also be brave enough to assert herself in the workplace?
Are some of us just wired to feel less pain?
But like most of us, notice as you run through your experiences of pain. Most pain we feel is because we didn't get something we wanted. Often due to love. People are known to betray us in the most hurtful ways. Then there is the pain from an accomplishment. We might sacrifice hard hours of alone time in our side hustle to find that it turns into more. And then it might lead to joy, eventually.

Clock It

It’s so easy to appear calm and collected when things are going smoothly. It’s when the unexpected arrives at our doorstep, that you are truly tested. Life is designed to make you strong, each little episode directed to you, for you to choose WHO you want to be in the world.

The most trying experiences can be your entry way to a whole new life. Haven’t we all heard of the hard-drinking guy, who now does presentations on safe-drinking from his wheelchair? Not all life lessons are so dramatic, it could be as little as offering to hold the door for someone when your own heart is breaking. In this small but difficult act, you show what you are made of.

The sound of our lessons will grow deafening if we do not take heed. We must never say to ourselves, that things are not SO bad, that they will get better, especially if we see no evidence of that. We humans can deny the most obvious things only because we don’t want to take action. 

The escalation of symptoms of your adult child that means she must move in with you, is not what you were expecting when you are 55. A spouse walking out the door, telling you that he has been unhappy for decades and can detail his numerous affairs just to prove it, is not what you were anticipating when you sat down to your bowl of cereal. But these things happen and although we were given many clues/signs/premonitions/warnings of what was ahead for us, we are still taken off track.

Yes, Life can be awful, dark, lonely and sad, and still we get to the other side. We wash our face, we look in the mirror and say “this will not last forever, just let me get through today.” That’s all, just today, sometimes we need to get through the next hour, sometimes the next minute is all we can handle. That’s okay.

Allow yourself the time to feel the pain, set a clock if you need to, and then choose. Do you need one more hour or are you ready to move on and be that much stronger? Because how will you teach resiliency, if you haven’t looked catastrophe in the face and made a choice to carry on?

The Privilege of Pain

Pain is the echo of remembering those special moments when all the world
belonged to the both of you. The day will come when the pain of remembering
turns into understanding the privilege of ever having them in your life at
all.

Remembering will be a joy.

Bob Perks
Author and Speaker

We have all felt this pain. May we be strong enough and have the courage to wait for the joy.