Here's a funny thing: This article relates to conversations that Larken and I have been having recently, around our philosophy in regards to the subject matter of dealing with pain in life. The discussions consisted of us consciously attempting to articulate what we believed life was teaching us about the nature of pain and struggle. The very next day after one such discussion, I see an article posted by a soul sister of mine, @maceytomlin... discussing this very thing, with her conclusion being identical to our own. I threw my head back and laughed. God.
We all fall for certain notions that feel comfortable to accept, whether we do that unconsciously or not, and we all also have a tendency to want to help others avoid pain while avoiding pain and discomfort ourselves.
However, if pain-avoidance had ever been my number one goal [it was definitely too high a priority there for awhile], I wouldn't be who I am today, because I wouldn't have faced things I needed to in order to free myself, and heal myself. Not to mention dramatically improve myself.
So we're going to jump into some uncomfortable stuff right now, and I encourage you to listen openly, and read with the knowledge that I am learning at all times, and this is a journey for us all.
The Lie: All Pain & Suffering Is Inherently BAD & Something We're Meant to Avoid
I'm beginning to understand that one of the most poisonous notions to ever enter our modern age, that myself and others have perhaps fallen for [consciously or subconsciously],
is that the worst thing in life is to experience any kind of pain or struggle -- and worse, that the goal should be to live to avoid any and all of it, at all cost.
When pain avoidance at all costs is a top priority, humans disconnect from one another, destroy their own ability to have empathy, generate entitlement and laziness, and create psychological strongholds deep in their psyches... because they won't address their wounds and allow themselves to FEEL discomfort long enough to PROCESS it. This is also how humans generate deep unnecessary EGO wounds, which are something created through completely unfounded expectations of the world we are thrust into.
If you avoid all pain as long as you can, I promise you won't be prepared well for when it comes in a form you can no longer easily sweep aside or pretend isn't there.
The mentality of embracing pain is the one that always has lead me to REAL strength, not hardness, and has helped me heal. I have tried to fool myself time and again that simply ignoring the problem long enough would diminish it into nothing... such is not the case, and the subconscious comes lashing forward like a beast.
What a lot of humans invariably end up doing, myself in the past as well, is trying hard to sweep everything out of the way or under the rug. We inevitably become people walking with limps, who won't acknowledge we have a limp or might have a problem that needs addressing.
If you're a smart person, you can see how this leads us to where a lot of us are now, and why relationships and human beings struggle even more than would have been necessary; so many have a deeply-rooted subconscious expectation that they should not have to experience any pain or struggle to begin with.
When they do, they are not only wounded by what actually happened in the physical world, their ego is unnecessarily wounded as well [e. g., "Why ME? Why do I have to go through this?"], the subliminal assumption being that THIS individual in particular should get to go through life without any such pain, even though pain is inevitable for everyone in this world.
