One Purpose of Pain

I've been reading some of Byron Katie's writings lately and I woke up this morning feeling like I've been working on an idea in my sleep all night and I have to get it down while the realisation is fresh.

I think what she's trying to say is that life offers us up opportunity for expanding our hearts and minds on a daily basis. The idea of turning around our painful thoughts is a strategy designed to overcome our entrenched beliefs. The more entrenched our ideas are, the more life throws at us experiences which can lead us to believe that the opposite is as true, if not more so, if we are willing to examine those beliefs.

Nothing is black-and white in this world. If we are to survive sucessfully in it, we need to be flexible in our ideas, and so if we are exhibiting inflexible thinking , life will probably throw us an experience that asks: "How can you be so sure on this one?".

I really think life is an opportunity for gaining wisdom and growth and that this amazing world we live in so complex and beyond human comprehension that true wisdom is really just the ability to feel deep humility and awe. If not, then life will just keep throwing us something else that says "ok, so you seem to have this one figured out, now try this experience for size" and if we feel pain from that experience, it probably means it's because we're hanging onto outmoded beliefs and it's time to move on, time to expand our heart and mind just a little bit more.

I think pain can be our greatest teacher, because it's a great motivator for change, for trying out something new, for examining our beliefs and for growth as a human being.

A lot of people are afraid of pain and do whatever they can to block it out. A lot of people are afraid of self examination and avoid it like the plague. In my experience, it's because I know that what I'll find is ugly and disgusting and I don't want to look at that. We know that we have this in us. We know that we are capable of ugly thoughts and actions.

What many of us don't care to examine is how we came to have such ugly thoughts, what really motivated us to do and say the ugly thing. Just like a wise parent can have empathy for a child who makes a mistake, we too can accept the ugly side of our nature and have empathy for ourselves, but only if we take a close look at it. Shoving it down, denying it and refusing to look at it, doesn't make it go away, it just causes us pain. Then if we don't get what the pain is all about, life will come right in and give us another chance to look at it again and again and again..... and again....