Embrace Pain
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“We must embrace pain and burn it as fuel for our journey.”
Kenji Miyazawa
We have all experienced pain in the past. We all continue to experience pain today. We will all experience pain in the future.
These three sentences? They are not meant to depress you. Or me. They are meant to be simple strings of truth, relics of reality. Pain is a part, a big part, of the human game.
So what do we do with the pain we do feel? Do we deny it, ushering it away into the locked closets of our lives? Or do we embrace it, quietly perhaps, sift through its sands, learn from its gritty grays?
Years ago, I would have gone with Option One. Denial. Make Believe. But now? I am all about the big, bad embrace. The honest and harrowing dance in the dark.
Pain as power? Fear as fuel?
Absolutely.
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Do you agree that it is important to embrace pain, to burn it as fuel for existence?
Pain can give you perspective. By experiencing pain we can understand joy. However, I also think it’s important not to wallow in pain as being content is somewhat a choice.
I am one of those that believes that one can not experience the whole of happiness or joy without experiencing the total opposite – pain.
I’m also signing on to expect that on any given day you’ve missed a post. Meaning, that you’ve gone into labor!
A different kind of pain.
I believe in embracing it, and the moving on. It is not healthy to hold on to pain. Easier said than done though.
I totally agree with Lauren–life is meant to be everything pain and joy, loss and connection. If we don’t experience one we can’t experience the other. It is key to honor all those emotions, it is in the expression that we have a choice and where we can get stuck.
It is still challenging for me to embrace the pain and allow myself to feel, denial is my first mechanism–drilled in their for years and years. It requires a lot of awareness on my part as to when I have gone into denial mode vs. feeling mode.
I’m not a big fan of embracing it but I can honestly tell you that I have drawn strength from the pain in my life. At times, pain and fear were the only things that kept me going. But most importantly, I didn’t lose sight all that is good in my life.
Btw, what an spooky and cool photo!
I am not quite sure how to answer this. I am not a person who has experienced a lot of pain so I am probably not the best person to answer anyway. Because, like you, I am preparing for labor, I am thinking of pain in the physical sense. The most physical pain I have ever felt is running marathons and a 50K ultra and in those instances I guess I embraced it. The pain was self-induced, part of the process of running those distances, so it was easier to embrace.
With labor though, I am approaching it in a different way. I just finished my third hypnobirthing class last night and watched videos of dozens of women who didn’t experience what they would call pain in their births. Sure, they had contractions but they were able to relax their entire body such that the muscles were not working against one another, but instead doing what our bodies already know how to do and delivering their babies in a very calm, relaxed state.
Being that I haven’t done this myself (yet) I cannot say that I will not embrace the pain and instead remove it from my consciousness and focus on this natural process, but it is what I hope to do. Who knows, I may be singing a different tune in eight weeks.
I don’t know exactly what you are referring to in your post, but if it is labor, I hope your experience is not incredibly painful and that it goes well.
Emotional pain? Or physical pain? Both are quite different. Physical pain is something we all feel and endure. Emotional pain, which is the pain I think you’re referring to, is relative. The pain I’ve experienced in my life is most likely very different from the pain you or others have experienced in life.
Do I think we should embrace pain? Yes.
Do I think it can be difficult to embrace? Yes.
Does it make us stronger? It can.
Do I think we need it as fuel for existence? I’m not so sure about this. I think experiencing pain makes us more compassionate, but I don’t know if it’s necessarily always fuel for existence. I think it can be for some, depending on the source of the pain and the person.
I agree it’s important to embrace pain. Both physically and emotionally, it seems to be the cleanest way through (which is not to say that pain isn’t messy, messy, messy…rather, I suppose, that trying to ignore it usually prolongs the experience).
I have been thinking lately that when we seek rescue from our lives instead of mucking through, we shortchange ourselves. Like MTFFH noted, I believe that going down allows us to go up and vice versa. In embracing these dynamic fluctuations, I’ve been thinking, we are our most alive.
I recently found this quote: “Transformation begins at the point where there is no hope but only despair.”
Says it all to me about the benefits of pain.
Aidan: You know I believe in the pendulum, especially when it relates to happiness and sadness. I think you have to experience both emotions in order to appreciate them completely. I believe you can’t get too comfortable with either emotion because it can swing in the other direction when you least expect it.
Oh, boy, this is a concept I have certainly been grappling with over the past year. I’m reading Sylvia Boorstein’s book about Buddhism, “It’s easier than you think.” I’ve heard/read this before, but think I am finally starting to get it…the first noble truth on the path to happiness is this:
“Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.”
Live comes with pain, that’s just the way it is. Accepting that we will experience pain, along with the joy, is perhaps different than embracing pain though.
The only real control we have in life is how we react to it. We can’t control other’s reactions/emotions, but we can control our own.
You don’t have to be Buddhist to gain insight from Boorstein’s book; she speaks to those from any spiritual belief. I have found it to be simple, yet profound.
And I echo Rachel’s sentiments above–allowing yourself to feel pain and acknowledging its existence pulls you through it. That’s different than wallowing in it or suffering though!
I hate typos I can’t fix…that’s “Life comes with pain”…damn editor perfectionist in me…
Pain produces some of the best writing I have written or read. It can be used as a tool- all depends on the application and intent.
@ Jack–I definitely agree!
Gorgeous post! I love the idea of finding beauty even in the dark places…and great quote at the top of the post. Very inspiring.
-jocelyn
Life is joyous and painful. We learn hard lessons from the pain. What we choose to do with the pain is up to us. And yet, that’s easier said than done.
What a great question. Sometimes, I’m not sure if I’m “embracing” things or being in denial. I’m embarrassed to admit that I still feel pain from a romantic relationship that ended over a year ago. I find this frustrating, because I don’t miss the person or think highly of him. Rather, I’m angry that despite his flaws, I let him into my life and let him hurt me. Maybe I’m talking about anger and not pain. I don’t know. ;]
Nicole…if I may…I read your post and felt compelled to respond – I hope I am not butting in but I just felt such a sense of kindred emotion when I read your post. It took me YEARS to get over someone for the same reason – I was angry that I let him into my life and hurt me. And for me, that anger was painful. For me – because I was angry at myself and because most of us are harder on ourselves than anyone else that anger was exponentially greater – and therefore more painful. What is my point? I think first to say I empathize! And, second, that I think you hit on an interesting point – that anger and pain can sometimes be the same thing when pain is the symptom and anger is the root cause.
Maybe this is be a topic that should be written about, because I felt a connection with this too! I also have felt this pain and anger about a relationship and have been dealing this and no I don’t want him, back but I am very angry that I let him use me as a crutch, hurt me and move on (now married). So yes we have to embrace it, deal with it and then try really hard to move on.
Yin and Yang – we can not experience one without at some point experiencing the other. If we didn’t know joy, we wouldn’t know pain.
I do agree that it is important to embrace pain. But there are times when I feel like I just can’t. Sometimes, I feel like I am at this crazy stage in my life where I know all the right answers, but I just don’t know how to actually act them out. Still, I think that it does have to start with knowing the right answers and then you can move forward to figuring out how to actually apply them to your own mind. Right now, it seems like I am all about developing my philosophy – who I want to be, how I want to be – and maybe one day, hopefully soon, I will actually make the transformation.