THE PLEASURE OF PAIN
by Kellie Stewart |
No expansion or evolution can take place without change.
That change is uncomfortable, change involves challenging what is familiar and causes us to question our current forms of needs and values. This is often perceived as a painful experience. Becoming accustomed with pain is congruent with evolving! Our essential nature, the mind, is built on avoiding this pain resulting in its foundation within us. We generally do not like the feelings associated with the notion of inner pain. Being able to face the feelings,sit in them and look for the source of the perception that is driving them is the way of mastery.
Avoiding pain is to allow pain to run your life!
To spend your life avoiding pain means it’s always right alongside you. As American Science writer and historian Michael Shermer says:
“The pursuit of pleasure lands us on a never ending hedonic treadmill that paradoxically leads to misery.”
If you want to grow and explore being the master of your life, avoiding the myriad of things that might hurt your heart or mind leads you straight towards it. Pain is not the problem. It’s a feedback mechanism to awaken full consciousness. Simplicity would be to also view it as just a transient experience in the universe that comes and goes.
Have you ever imagined what it would be like to be comfortable with inner turmoil, disturbance AND AGITATION? What does this surface with in you?
Before you close your mind to avoid this question, let’s look into why you would:
Your mind is talking – is it saying…
“I don’t have to put up with this”
“fuck this shit”
“I’m not reading this I’m just going to scroll past into something more pleasing “
“This is to challenging for me to comprehend”…?
What if: Your heart is attempting to pull back and close. Being driven by the fear of pain, to protect itself so it doesn’t have to experience the feeling associated with a pain from the past again.
What if: YOU do this because you can’t handle the challenge,YOU react by closing your mind in order to protect yourself.
What if: Once you close your mind, you will build an entire construct in your psyche to keep you closed, through a series of rationalizations leading to self-righteousness and why this blog is wrong.
Buying into this illusion it becomes part of you,thus creating layers of pain inside. Eventually this sets as a foundation of your entire life, shaping your thoughts, your preferences and your reactions. Building an entire protection structure around closure.
Do you wish to remain a slave to the fear of pain? Or, wholeheartedly participate in the fullness of life, remaining open to all life has to offer including this blog?
William James, the father of modern psychology, believed the greatest discovery in his generation was that people could alter their lives by altering their perceptions and attitudes of mind.
Transcending the tendency to avoid pain and stepping into it sounds weird huh!
Counter intuitive and crazy for some.
In my direct experience,when life dishes you something that causes inner turmoil and pain,allow it to be present, refrain from fighting it, own it and embody it instead of pulling away.
Psychologically closing creates a sensitivity around the perception for the rest of your life stores it inside and you become afraid it will happen again. It’s not so much what happens on the outside that determines your destiny. It’s your perceptions, decisions and actions that determine your outcomes.
Experiencing pain is part of life, perhaps you can simply view it as a form of energy that is a form of service for you to grow. In reality pain is the price of fulfillment. The moment we turn loose and are willing to pay that price, fear disappears.
The moment you are not scared of the pain, you become unwavering in the face of any situation. Life will bring forth deep experiences surfacing intense pain from within. Based on past memories or future imagined fears. Wisdom is to allow it to surface and not try and avoid it. Give it the space to surface then integrate it.
Experiencing pure unconditioned love of the self is to discover the full presence of the universe within – acknowledging the stored pain and bringing it into consciousness – it is with deep inner work true self-actualization can occur. Remaining fully conscious in the face of pain, opening your heart, being centered and present reveals the hidden universal order of love! This is the core of mastery.
Being comfortable with discomfort. The world will be less likely to bother you again. You will experience through your senses everything at a much deeper level.
Your awareness expands. Along with your potential.
Now love and wisdom runs your life – not the avoidance of pain.
Kellie xx
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Kellie Stewart
Entrepreneur - Teacher - Speaker - Consultant - Philosopher - Human Source Code Podcast.