Turn Your Pain Into Wisdom

                                           "Most people manage pain by eating, drinking, 

                                     smoking, distracting themselves, working harder. 

                                                            That's just managing pain, 

                    the pain that comes from not feeling fully alive from not growing. 

                                                                       - Tony Robbins 

A lot of people are trying to run from pain and their problems with some form of addiction.

We can never run away from our pain and our problems.
In life, we will all will have good days and also bad days. Good times and bad times. We will feel good, but we will also feel bad. We will have setbacks and smooth sailing. It is completely normal.
No person has only good days. It doesn´t matter who you are... you will have problems, you will feel bad and you will have setbacks in your life. It is part of living. 

"The cure for pain is the pain." - Rumi

Society has told us for years that we should not have to feel bad, and if we do there are so many ways of avoiding it or fixing it. If it is only for the moment.

Some people don´t ever want to feel bad, sad or to feel any kind of pain. They always want to feel good in the moment. In order to feel good at every moment of your life you might have to turn to some kind of addiction or addictive behavior to be able to create the desired feeling or avoiding the feelings that you don´t want.

We have become a society filled with pain relievers. Drugs, prescription drugs, alcohol, food, sugar, caffeine, gambling, sex, shopping, relationship hopping, endless complaining and gossiping, always helping others or busyness... just to name a few.

All these methods are a way of disconnecting and avoiding pain. (if done excessively and with the intention to escape reality)
Maybe you tell yourself... "I don´t want to feel this way right now so I will numb out and escape from the moment." And off you go digging through the refrigerator for something to eat, even though you are hungry. Or you go shopping, gambling or get busy checking emails and FB.

Don´t postpone your pain to the future.
The disconnect from the pain is only temporary. You don´t want to feel the feeling right now so you are postponing it to later. 

"Not why the addiction, but why the pain." - Gabor Mate

What is underneath the feeling? What is it that you are avoiding by numbing out?

By disconnecting and continuing to disconnect with things like addiction you are slowly but surely isolating yourself. It is like an endless black hole or bottomless pit. The more you feed it with some kind of addiction the more it wants. There will never be enough stuff to fill up that black hole from the outside. It must be filled from the inside.

What pain are you trying to avoid?
If you are trying to avoid it today, it will come back knocking on your door tomorrow, next week or next month. You can never get rid of your pain by ignoring it. But you can deal with it by accepting it.

Addiction is the easy way out. The more pleasurable way. Trying to avoid pain by adding pleasure. 

"Can't escape the pain, kiddo. Battle through it and you get stronger." 

- Laurie Halse Anderson

Instead try to find the root of the problem. Find the original wound, clean it out and then heal it.
It will take a lot of work to discipline yourself and your mind.
It is so much easier to disconnect from yourself with some addiction or addictive behavior.

Learn to self-sooth because anything you reach for out there won´t help you to fix your problem and the emptiness on the inside.
Tell the truth... what are you trying to avoid?

Accept the situation, instead of running from it. Sit in your pain and your discomfort. Don´t fight it.
Instead ask... what is this pain teaching me? Learn from it.
Now... what can you do and how can you take the right action?

It is painful to tell the truth. It´s painful to tell people who we really are. It is easy to float the truth.
It is easy to tell ourselves that we will think about the problem tomorrow. Pushing it forward to the next week, month or year.

It´s addictive, but it´s only an escape from the real problem.

The pain you feel today is tomorrows strength.

Suffer and endure. Someday this pain will be useful to you.

The attempt to escape from pain, is what create more pain.

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When You Let Go You Create Space For Something Better

                                                     You can't reach for anything new 

                                        if you hands are filled with yesterday's junk

Is it time to unload some messed up things, people and situations in your life?

Why are you hanging onto these people, situations and things?

Are you afraid that you won't find something better?
Is that why you are still with that man/woman that you have absolutely zero in common with and he/she doesn't support your dream? And remaining in this relationship, you have now gained an extra 50 pounds.
Time to let them go.

Why are you still at a job that you hate and where you know you will never make more money than what you are making right now? No opportunity for advancement. And besides that it constantly stresses you out and it makes you go shopping for things that you don't want. And eating things that you really don't want to eat, but doing this calms your nerves.
Does it feel safe and secure? But at the same time you are bored out of your mind. Is it worth staying where you are and never taking the opportunity to find out what you are really made of? What your gifts and talents are? What you have to offer the world that no one else has? You know, you only live once. You don't get a do-over.
Time to let it go.

Are you staying with a group of people because they are on the same level as you?
Maybe broke, miserable, angry, addicted, gossipers with no goals and no vision for the future. Why are you still hanging out with them? Are you afraid to break away, because if you do you must get out of your comfort zone and stop doing the same old things that you have been doing for the last 10, 20, 30 or even 40 years? And you have to start doing things that scares the crap out of you?
Time to let them go.

How about all that clutter in you house, why are you hanging onto broken lamps, furniture, rugs, curtains that you will never use again.
How about you closet. Isn't it about time you got rid of the clothes that you wore in high school, or the suit that your dad wore when you were a kid. Why are you hanging onto these things?
Time to let it go. 

The more you let go, the higher you rise.

Yes, I know that you want things to get better in your life. We all want that.
But in order for something better to show up in your life, you must first create a space for it.
In other words, you first have to get rid of that crappy job before you will get a new one. Or at least start looking for a better one, starting today. Yes, you have to get rid of people that are not supporting you and your dream, before you can attract some better ones into your life. 

"In the process of letting go, 

you will lose many things from your past, 

but you will find yourself." 

- Deepak Chopra

Get rid off clutter in your life.
Clean out your closet, your house, your car, check on your friends. Decide who can stay and who needs to go.

Check on where you spend your time.
Do you really want to continue to give your time every Tuesday to this volunteer group, if they don't appreciate you? Do you want to show up on Wednesday mornings for this networking group if they are not supportive of you? Do you want to continue to spend time with groups or people that are not taking you in the direction of your dream?

First you must create a vacuum, before something better will show up in its place.

The tricky part is that you first have to let go of what isn't working. What you can see, hear and touch.
Then trust that the Universe will bring you something much better. Something that is more in alignment of who you are. Something that you haven't yet seen, heard or touched.

You have to believe it before you can see it.
Be convinced that the Universe will bring you something absolutely awesome.
It's called Faith. You must believe that what is in front of you is better than what is behind you.

"Let go of who you thought your life should be, 

and embrace the life that is trying to work

its way into your consciousness."

- Caroline Myss

Have the guts to do what is needed, not what is convenient. 

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Challenges Will Activate The Potential In You

                                                   "Soul work is not a high road.
                                        It is a deep fall into an unforgiving darkness
                  that won´t let you go until you find the song that sings you home."

Have you ever heard the expression "The dark night of the soul"?

What is it?

It is a term that goes back a long time.
The dark night of the soul is a kind of death that you die.
Often it is an awakening process. The death of the old self and the birth of the true self.

It can be triggered by an external event such as a disaster, the death of someone close to you or a life that you have planned that suddenly collapses.
Some kind of disaster which seem to invalidate the meaning that your life had before.
Nothing makes sense anymore and there´s no purpose to anything.

The dark night of the soul is a kind of re-birth.
You are losing your old identification. Your previous identity is lost and you don´t yet have an identification of what is new and what is emerging.

You are in the dark. You don´t know where you are and where you are going.
Like feeling lost in the darkness of a forest. You can´t go back and you don´t know which path to follow. Or maybe there isn´t even a path. You have to make your own.

You remember who you used to be, but you know that you are not that person anymore.
Who are you becoming? You don´t know that either, at this point.

It is dark and it is painful. Very painful.
The dark night is filled with fear and disconnect. 

"The dark night of the soul is when you have lost the flavor of life but have not yet gained the fullness of divinity. So it is that we must weather the dark time, the period of transformation when what is familiar has been taken away and the new richness is not yet ours. "

- Ram Dass

Why is it so painful?
Because you are getting rid of the old. (Like a snake shedding its skin).
The Universe is pushing you. Giving you pain until you can articulate a new vision and purpose for your life.

The old life is no longer who you are. Your new vision for your life is what you are becoming.
The pain will keep on pushing you until you will get pulled by a bigger vision for your life.

You were actually on the wrong path in your old life and that is why it was giving you so much pain.
(When your life path is starting to hurt you, you are on the wrong path.)
And it got worse and worse until you could not take it anymore and you had to enter the dark night of the soul.

The pain is forcing you into having a vision.
A vision that is bigger than the pain.

When you are beginning to have a vision of what is possible for your life you will start to get pulled by it. 

" The dark night of the soul is a journey into light, a journey from your darkness into the strength and hidden resources of your soul."

- Carolyn Myss

When you can describe and embrace your vision you can start to walk in that direction.
You can start to align yourself with what is possible for your life instead of remaining on a path that was never meant for you in the first place.

Instead of being stuck you can now walk in the direction of your potential and your possibilities.

When you start walking the path of your true purpose, The Universe doesn´t need to hit you with pain as much.

Challenges will activate the potential in you.
The dark night of the soul is a very difficult time but it is a time for marvelous growth.
You hang on and you persist through the dark night of the soul because you can´t conceive going back to your old ways of life. That would be like going back to prison.

The dark night of the soul is about transformation.
Leaving the old and entering a higher consciousness and your true nature.

You don´t go through a deep personal transformation
 without some kind of dark night of the soul."

-  Sam Keen

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