“Pain is a relatively objective, physical phenomenon; suffering is our psychological resistance to what happens. Events may create physical pain, but they do not in themselves create suffering. Resistance creates suffering. Stress happens when your mind resists what is… The only problem in your life is your mind’s resistance to life as it unfolds. ”
― Dan Millman
When I first heard the concept that suffering is optional and that it shows resistance to life as it is, I immediately began to protest.
“Sure try telling that to people who are homeless and have nothing. Tell that to someone who is out of work and doesn’t know how to feed their families!”
Then I met people who’s lives seemed so much harder than my own and yet they had a joy that I don’t think I could match on my best days. I met people with death sentences from cancer hanging over their head who wanted nothing more than to tell jokes and misbehave. I learned that it was possible to hurt but not suffer.
It was then that I understood what Bruce Lee meant when he said “Be Like Water.”
Blessings, G
“Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding… And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy”
― Kahlil Gibran
Pain has given me many gifts.
Empathy has come from memories of pain shared.
Body awareness has come from Pain’s messages.
Perspective has come when I see those
who’s suffering has cause to be much deeper
yet carried so much lighter.
Also what hurt so deeply long ago
that I thought it unbearable
now has faded to a mere itch
if remembered at all.
(A gift of memory and time as well)
I find little of nobility in my own pain
and dislike the common game of comparing scars.
Yet still for the gifts of pain I feel grateful
and no doubt will unwrap many more.
Blessings, G
Click on images to see full-sized:
Magician (Alt) by G A Rosenberg
Butterfly Colours Obscuring an Idyllic Landscape by G A Rosenberg
“We deserve all the good things that happen to us. Don’t feel guilty. Accept the blessings”
— Paulo Coelho
When I first read the above quote, I was struck by how many different levels there can be in a simple eloquent statement. On the one hand I asked myself, is he saying that we deserve and are deserving of whatever comes to us either good or bad? Does that mean that people who suffer deserve their suffering? It occurred to me that that is a stretch for Mr. Coelho does not talk about the bad things but the good.
I have know several people who were so convinced that all they deserved was hardship and pain that when their lives actually improved, they sabotaged them because they did not feel they deserved it. In many cases, the people who did this were kids which made it even rougher to experience along with them. If only they could see that the full experience of life was available to them, the joy and delight as well as the sorrow. Indeed this full gamut seems to come part and parcel with the spirit and the DNA. If only we could accept it.
Likewise, if we only see the good, then our experience is also limited. Many times it is through adversity that we receive our greatest gifts. We become able to see just how strong we are and we develop compassion for others in whatever difficulties that they are experiencing. Indeed, often the parts of our lives that seem the most difficult are the ones we look back and treasure.
I hope to maintain equilibrium and continue to know both joy and pain, compassion and appreciation.
Blessings, G
“I do not ask the wounded person how he feels, I myself become the wounded person.”
― Walt Whitman, Song of Myself
I heard your pain
not a sob, not a scream
but a throbbing stomach clenching ball
It hurt yet I knew that to remove it
would be selfish
It would be to remove something from the
very heart of you
so I sat there
feeling it with you
Offering the solace
that you were not alone…
When I see someone hurting, the strongest temptation is to do something, anything that will take away their pain. In sympathy, it is so easy to say to someone “It’s alright and try to make it better somehow. That may work for pain that is merely physical but not so much when it comes to wounds of the heart or spirit. Some lessons can only be learned by going through it. It hurts to see someone hurting but can be a very selfish act to try to make them feel better without addressing what has caused the pain in the first place and what lesson they have attracted. Sometimes the best thing we can do instead is to let them know we are there hurting besides them…
Blessings, G
Click on images to see full-sized:
Forest Conquest by G A Rosenberg
Aerial View of a Spinning Peacock by G A Rosenberg
“I’m not crazy about reality, but it’s still the only place to get a decent meal.”
― Groucho Marx
Reality has its moments…the whole gamut of reactions, sad,mad, glad, joy around every corner but gut wrenching pain as well… not only feeling our pain but the pain of those we love and the more we open ourselves to love the more pain we feel… the more joy too and those moments, those special moments where everything makes sense and the universe fits together we need to hold onto particularly at the moments when we half convince ourselves that we are alone and want to turtle-like pull into our shells of pain… when we feel hurt by those who lash out with their own pain because hurting us gives them a way of externalizing it. It is a strange way of saying ‘I love you’..this projectile compassion…perhaps it is a step to the real thing…we can do it too.. project the love we feel onto them letting it spill outwards…being a mirror not of the injury but the health…
Blessings, G
“You haven’t yet opened your heart fully, to life, to each moment. The peaceful warrior’s way is not about invulnerability, but absolute vulnerability–to the world, to life, and to the Presence you felt. All along I’ve shown you by example that a warrior’s life is not about imagined perfection or victory; it is about love. Love is a warrior’s sword; wherever it cuts, it gives life, not death.”
― Dan Millman
Open my heart enough to bleed
Open my eyes enough to cry
Open my arms enough to hug and be hugged
Open my mouth enough to laugh
or speak of my pain and joy
Putting up a front is easy
Building a wall
to say nothing of the words in which I’m armoured
Words of comfort and joy
Words that speak of a serenity
I have yet to find
and an equanimity that eludes me
I will speak of my pain
and own it
It was my gift to myself to grow
I am no one’s victim
just a being searching for a way in
Or perhaps a way out.
“People are afraid of themselves, of their own reality; their feelings most of all. People talk about how great love is, but that’s bullshit. Love hurts. Feelings are disturbing. People are taught that pain is evil and dangerous. How can they deal with love if they’re afraid to feel? Pain is meant to wake us up. People try to hide their pain. But they’re wrong. Pain is something to carry, like a radio. You feel your strength in the experience of pain. It’s all in how you carry it. That’s what matters. Pain is a feeling. Your feelings are a part of you. Your own reality. If you feel ashamed of them, and hide them, you’re letting society destroy your reality. You should stand up for your right to feel your pain.”
― Jim Morrison
Do you know what it is to be frightened by what you feel? To sense the opposite emotions, their shadows, hovering somewhere close behind. New agers hide it by chanting “Love and Light, Love and Light” yet would they be so eager to invoke light if they weren’t put off by darkness. It’s ok to feel and acknowledge fear, anger and sorrow. They do tend to be part of our makeup whether or not we do. By acknowledging it all, by accepting it all, the uneasiness subsides. In pitch dark, the least amount of light shows out almost blindingly. Light casts shadows. Very often we earn our pain and need not fear it. We may have to do without it some day but for now it is ours.
Blessings, G
“”My argument with so much of psychoanalysis, is the preconception that suffering is a mistake, or a sign of weakness, or a sign even of illness, when in fact, possibly the greatest truths we know have come out of people’s suffering; that the problem is not to undo suffering or to wipe it off the face of the earth but to make it inform our lives, instead of trying to cure ourselves of it constantly and avoid it, and avoid anything but that lobotomized sense of what they call “happiness.” There’s too much of an attempt, it seems to me, to think in terms of controlling man, rather than freeing him. Of defining him rather than letting him go. It’s part of the whole ideology of this age, which is power-mad.”
— Arthur Miller.
Would you give up all of the moments that have given you pain for a life of bland happiness? I know I wouldn’t. For in those moments that have hurt the worst I learned to claim the largest parts of myself. From thoughtlessly betraying a friend, I learned how certain rifts can never be fully healed and to trust my judgement just a little bit more. From the moments I felt the most alone, I learned both self-reliance and an empathy for the lonely. I learned how to love another by doing it wrong and causing pain both to myself and others and I learned that kindness goes a lot further than anger tho both have their place. I would never wish to be spared the tears in my life or heart for those have taught me the greatest compassion.
I would never wish to spare my son the pain of his mistakes tho I will feel it along with him. It would be the greatest disservice to him to try, Rumi said that the cracks are where the light comes in and I have learned that to be true. Gratitude ensues.
Blessings, G
“Face your life, its pain, its pleasure, leave no path untaken.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book
Why do we resist our pain? Well besides the obvious that it hurts. Can we learn from our pain? Almost definitely. Tho, so often instead of learning from it, seeing pain as our guru (“dispeller of darkness”) , we push it under the rug and let it build up pressure until we explode either in illness or in some kind of rage that takes other people with it. It amazes me how afraid we can be of showing our feelings. The media encourages us to find someone to pin it on and play victim. That’s not to say that sometimes we don’t get hurt by the actions of another but it seems that more and more we are taught that anytime we hurt from that point onward, we can blame it on that initial pain.
Sometimes pain comes from our own actions. We have unreasonable expectations of ourselves or another person or even a situation. We act rashly and it falls down on us. A healthy reaction to this is to look at what has caused the pain and either not do it again or see what we were trying to express. A child touches a hot stove and gets burned. Is he to blame or his parent or the stove? None of the above. Curiosity is normal and trying new things is awesome. Some of the new things may hurt. The more we learn to ask, what is the lesson rather than who to blame the more we live healthier lives.
Blessings, G
“Face your life, its pain, its pleasure, leave no path untaken.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book
How far do I travel when roads diverge?
How many possibilities can I hold
before the wave collapses
and my way becomes fixed? >
How much of life’s poison must I swallow?
How many blessings by grace receive?
How many loves to meet and hide from?
How many times must my soul bleed?
In my life I feel I have had more joy than sorrow. I’m not sure how much of this is due to my outlook. I have long ago given up holding on to most of the things that most people seem to. When something hurts, I feel the pain and do my best to make it stop hurting. Looking back at past pains, replaying them in my head seems silly to me for the most part. Tho I can understand the impulse. Still while i am willing to hear the pain and sorrow that helped shape friends old and new, i want to hear some of the happy stuff as well. What flower or sunset or light in a child’s eye filled one with joy and awe? What point was the happiest and most soul fulfilling in their lives. I’ll show you mine if you show me yours 🙂
Cloud Watchers VI by G A Rosenberg 
