Gratitude for the Pain...

I know, kind of a dumb thing to be grateful for, but sometimes it is the only way I learn anything at all.  I don’t love the pain, but I believe I have accepted it as being part of life.  And if I try to avoid it, I just seem to invite more pain into my life.

Avoid pain.  Seek pleasure.  This was what I thought living was about.  I am not sure why I grew up with all these hedonistic ideas about how life and living should be, but I did.  And at the very same time, I grew up with this very real sense of God.  I have always had it, this idea, this concept which then grew into a belief, that there was more to this life than me and my demands, wishes and life.  There was something larger, I just didn’t know how the fuck to engage that whatever the fuck it was.

Turns out that the pain, of the way I chose to live my life, was the pathway for an introduction to the Divine.  And I am quite sure, had I not had a sufficient amount of pain, I would have never, ever turned towards spirit.

So I am grateful for the pain.  I have learned so much from all the painful things in this life. The insecurity of being who you are in a world that always seems to clamor for you to be anything else than who you are.  The exquisite pain of loving someone who doesn’t love you back.  That one is excruciating.  Giving everything you have to someone who not so nicely shows you or actually says, “thanks but no thanks.”  The longing and desire for something other than what you have.  And the fear that you will never be satisfied.  The physical pain of disease and illness.  Those really blow as well.

But, I have only learned and grown in my capacity as a human being relating to other human beings by experiencing each of the above.  I have had to experience the sting of betrayal, the loss of a love you were sure was going to be life lasting, the indignities of aging, sickness and death.  It has only been through these very painful things that I have ever been inclined to reach towards the Divine.

So hardship has been my pathway towards peace.  I am not sure I ever really get to the peace, but I do trudge in that direction more so than I do not.  

So today I am grateful for the pain.  And by saying this, I am not requesting more of it, please.  I will accept it if it comes, but I do not want to learn any more of those lessons or be stretched out towards grace today.  Today, I am tired and would really just like to have a normal day that is full of the benign realities of life.  If there even is such a thing.

But even as I say that, I realize that the experience of pain is a choice.  We can feel the pain of the life we get, or we can attempt to avoid it, missing great, important things in our paths because we are just too married to the idea that things should be other than they are.  Or we get mired in the self pity of our own particular situation and we numb out, do anything we can to turned down pain’s amplification.  When, in reality, the best course of action is to acknowledge the pain and just move toward it.  Choose to experience it in full force, in real time.  Welcome in the pain which, even as I write it, seems like the most fucked up thing to say.  Why would I want to do that?  Because to run from it, only increases its staying power and magnitude.

Here is what I know for certain:  the more I lean into the pain, the quicker it passes through my life.  And the more willingness I have to lean into the pain, the greater capacity I have for joy.  I am not sure how it works, I just know that this is my experience.  The more I resist the pain, the tighter and more restricted my emotional range becomes.  However, the more willingness I have to lean into the raw, searing pain of my life, the greater my capacity for joy.  It is like when I welcome in the pain, it comes in and strips away all the shit that I do not need, it sloughs off the dead and dying parts of me and cleans me out.  Leaving room within my body and soul for the light, healing power of grace.

Pain has become the root-o-rooter for joy.  It takes all those dead and dying parts of me, or the parts that I should identify as malignant, and cuts them away.  The process is fucking painful, but the end result is there is more joy in my life. There is more capacity within for love, trust, faith, hope, joy and honesty. I really wish it could be different. But it just isn’t. 

The only way I have ever been motivated to turn towards God, is to be in an incredible amount of pain.  And because of that pain, I was willing to surrender and ask for help.  And the help has always come, not always in the way and manner I would like, but I am always helped.  Never have I been left out in the cold.  I am not sure what God looks like for me.  I just know that it is a benevolent and loving force for good.  Always.  And that while it doesn’t want me to have a million dollars, or a new car, it does want me to evolve spiritually and rise above my baser instincts and nature.  Even though I really don’t want to do that work sometimes.  Well, ever, I do not want to do the work ever.  I am forced by the pain to do the work required to ease the pain.  And if there was no pain, there would be no motivation to do anything at all.

So after all of that, I am grateful for the pain.  I am grateful this life has given me enough of it to cause me to continuously seek God.  I am grateful that there has been just enough pain to move me forward but not so much that I am taken out.  It is a delicate balance this whole living thing.  And when I can find gratitude for the painful things in this life, I kinda feel like I am winning at living.  Look at me over here transmuting suffering into knowledge!  I mean, on a random Wednesday, that kind of feels like a win.

Again, still...

I am grateful for

Being able to get past the anger and share honestly why I am hurt

Being able to move past hard conversations

Inventory

Prayer

Meditation

Being ok with my own company

The kids not loving the time change either and so everyone is going to bed at like 8:30

Big Sur trip on the horizon

Gym time

Travel

Routine

Fall

oh, and pain.