Pain is the Great Awakener
Pain is the great awakener—a catalyst for change. If we find the courage to relinquish control of our emotions, let go when we find ourselves desperately trying to hold on, and allow ourselves to feel what is within deeply, our pain becomes the most incredible gift. In doing so, we become alchemists of the modern world, transmuting our pain into beauty and bringing healing to the world at large.
Many people spend their entire lives believing they are fundamentally broken on the inside without hope of repair. We may have felt as though we have never truly fit in anywhere, and that no one has ever fully understood the depths of our pain and suffering. It is pain that so often keeps us isolated and alienated; we might believe that we are the only ones to feel things to such depths and experience such an intensity of emotions. Those of us who fully expressed ourselves throughout our youth were so often labelled as crazy, so we learnt to suppress what we felt from a young age, choosing instead to wear a mask and become a smaller version of ourselves so we didn’t become the target for our peers’ judgment and ridicule.
If you were anything like me, you had a different face that you wore in private, one that was often marred with a deep sadness. My soul was always longing for its authentic expression. To escape my sadness and pain and silence the cries of my soul, I spent many years disappearing into various worlds of fantasy within computer games. Later, I found an escape by partying, drinking, and sometimes using other substances. I ran from my pain until it eventually caught up with me. It turns out that within our pain is an abundant source of energy. When harnessed and tamed, this pain is a potent force.
Isn’t it a shame that, because of our pain, we tend to keep our most authentic selves and our truest emotions hidden from the world? What might a world look like if we were to reveal more of how we were feeling to each other? What might the world look like if we all recognised the pain within ourselves, and, therefore, could recognise it within each other? Would that not then lead to a more compassionate, sensitive, and loving world? What if we could find the right tools to access and harness the precious energy found at the source of our pain and use it for good instead of allowing it to consume us?
Anyone who fails to acknowledge the pain they have felt within their own lives since they entered this existence will remain wounded and fragile at their core. If we are to become like the trees, strong from the inside out, and form a deep sense of unity like a forest network, then we must embrace our individual and collective pain, and allow it to strengthen us and bind us together.
True liberation from pain comes when we acknowledge that we still hold pain in our hearts, no matter how whole and healed we might think we are. Freedom from pain comes with acceptance. It is when we recognise and accept that pain still exists within us that we can then spend our days transcending the pain, instead of living in avoidance of it, pretending that it isn’t there until, one day, when we are most unaware, it decides to creep up on us and cripple us from the blindside.
To transcend our pain and become the masters of it, we must find an outlet for it. This is where creativity can help us on our journeys. To create something from the very source of our pain brings liberation as nothing else can. Pain, therefore, becomes a driving force for a great purpose. It is the fuel to the eternal flame that burns inside each of us.