How many times have you said to yourself “I have learnt my lesson” only to find yourself going down the same fuckin path a second, third – hell even a fifth time!
Think about when you were small or even as an adult who may have small children around you – we make it our business to pain proof any space so that we limit or mitigate any potential pain those we love will feel. But what if, instead of trying to avoid pain (which if you have managed to make that happen please let me know) we looked at the power of pain.
According to the Merriam – Webster dictionary, pain is defined as “a localized or generalized unpleasant bodily sensation or complex of sensations that causes mild to severe physical discomfort and emotional distress and typically results from bodily disorder (such as injury or disease)” and “a basic bodily sensation that is induced by a noxious stimulus, is received by naked nerve endings, is associated with actual or potential tissue damage, is characterized by physical discomfort (such as pricking, throbbing, or aching), and typically leads to evasive action”
Sidenote: I am a policy analyst by profession so know that there will always be a research component or definition to my blog…lol.
I digress. Based on the definition noted above, often when we speak of pain, we are speaking about a physical, emotional and/or mental feeling that is negative – most times something we wish to not repeat. So if the concept of pain illicits feelings of negativity why do we continue to engage in activities and/or actions that cause us pain?
The million dollar answer…Is it possible that we are actually empowered by pain!
DISCLAIMER: Let me just be VERY clear before I continue with my blog. Feelings of mental, emotional, psychological and/or physical pain are real AF. Many of us we walk around in this world portraying the prettiest and most filtered sides of who we are in an effort to hide our pain. Pain in any form can be debilitating and the intent of this blog is not to undermine or disrespect those who are in pain or suffer silence.
I want you to think about a time in your life where you did not succumb to your pain but instead triumphed. How did it feel? Did you feel relief, empowered, shocked, happy…what. Or did you not even recognize or acknowledge that you had triumphed (which we do far too often). You see because pain is so predominantly focused on the negative, so few of us take a moment to see our power in that moment. There is much to learn about ourselves, about our resilience and our sources of power in times of pain – and yet we too often leave that by the roadside.
Human resilience is not really driven by the amazing things that come our way, but rather in times of hardship where we are challenged to not only face our pain nor push through it but CONQUER it! So if I go back to the concept of “I learnt my lesson”, perhaps we should explore reframing that sentence to what power did I gain through the pain. I can appreciate how simplistic this may all seem, and seeking the power through pain is not always feasible nor is it appropriate in certain instances, but exploring the opportunity to reframe the things we tell ourselves in times of hardship can help us tap into a space that many of us don’t acknowledge or feel we have.
I want to challenge you to think differently about how you show up for yourself in times of hardship – because the fact is we possess the power to rise above the pain. This is especially important when pain has been inflicted on us. To show the world and those closest to you that you are not defined by your pain but rather the power that you illicited can take us one step closer to freeing ourselves of the sadness that sometimes follows pain.
I operate under the mindset that because I am human, pain is a fact of life. What is not required to be fact is the ability of that pain to be a permanent fixture in my life.
“We must embrace pain and burn it as fuel for our journey”
~Kenji Miyazawa
