You CAN'T Avoid Pain

Do you know what the biggest epidemic of our time is?

 

AVOIDING PAIN

 

We don’t want a bad grade

We don’t want a bad review

We run from disappointment

We run from troubled relationships

We avoid hard conversations

We don’t want to get on a scale

We don’t want to look in the mirror

Color the hair, cut out the fat, and smooth the wrinkles

We don’t want to be the ‘bad guy’

We think we have to stop crying

We pretend we are okay

We shun failure

 

We invest so much energy in feeling good, feeling happy. Protecting ourselves from feeling bad. It scares us. It stops us in our tracks. For some it is the primary motivator in life. Succeed—so I don’t fail. Achieve—so I don’t notice the hole in my heart.

 

I have learned many things from and with my clients but first and foremost my life has taught me that pain is an integral part of life and when we hide from it, we risk losing a piece of our own humanity.

 

Sometimes we have to roll up in a fetal position and shake with terror

Sometimes we have to eat crow

Sometimes we have to feel such heavy loss that our limbs no longer carry us

Sometimes we have to face our own weaknesses

Sometimes we have to accept responsibility for causing others harm

Sometimes we have to look in the mirror and accept that perfection does not exist.

Sometimes we have to do without, suffer, sacrifice, retrench, retreat and recover.

 

And that is the proof that we are human.

(Not to put too fine a point on it but …that is the proof that we are not G-d. )

 

That is the seeds of our survival. Learning how to live in the garden and learning how to journey out from it.  Learning how to accept ourselves for our humanity. Learning how to accept each other for theirs.