Emotional Pain

Suffering forges in opportunity to embrace our shadow self, or, circumstances that cause us unhappiness. In embracing emotional pain we become more curious, compassionate, and engaged in life. In denying the existence of our suffering, pain lingers and dwells below the surface ever tainting our lives in unconscious ways. Bring suffering to the surface, inspect it, ponder it with curiosity and be free from the constant battle to repress it. This battlefield of force and counter force is suffering. The more we resist the painful thoughts the more the suffering persists. We want to relax our grip.

Suffering connects us to everything in life that is not suffering. We hear the birds sing, feel the sun’s rays, and smell the orange blossoms, all as distinct from our suffering. This differentiation beckons us to lean into the suffering as a means to channel appreciation of the wholeness within us and around us. We cannot deny the beauty of the mountains, a puppy, or the love we hold in our hearts, all this magnificence juxtaposed to our suffering.

In understanding that suffering, like rain, germinates new potentiality we lean into it. It transforms us, revitalizes us, and invigorates our connection to the source of our existence. When we let go of resistance we can tap into our inner knowing and in so doing create new opportunities. We flourish, unstuck from the past, and able to move towards a new beginning. A beginning with a fresh respect for all the life within us, and the life sources external to us. We learn that life is an instrument and we write and play the music.