If someone told me a year ago that feeling pain is a good thing, I would have thought they were crazy. Until a year ago, I spent most of my life unconsciously avoiding pain. It wasn’t until recently that I learned pain is where the magic happens. In order to grow, change and become the wonderful people we are meant to be we need to go through pain. But we are not taught this. In fact, society teaches us the exact opposite to be true. Consumerism is based on pain avoidance, selling us products that will make us “happy” and keeping us small.
We are unconsciously looking for the next thing to numb our pain: these things are called “easy buttons”. Easy buttons are what we push to get us out of our body and into obsessive thoughts or numbing out to avoid our feelings. Easy buttons can be food, alcohol, sex, social media, TV, and over exercising. I hid my easy buttons so well that I didn’t even know I was numbing out because how can continually reading self-help books, constantly listening to podcast, over exercising and obsessively eating healthy food not be good for me? I am not saying watching TV, engaging in social media, reading and exercising are bad and we should not do them. We just need to have awareness on why we are doing them. Is it for enjoyment or avoidance of deeper feelings? Easy buttons temporarily numb our pain and make us feel short-term relief, but it is not long lasting because when we numb we suppress our feelings and they are bound to resurface later because they have not been fully processed.
So why is pain a good thing? There are valuable lesions to be learned from pain. It helps us discover who we truly are and allows us to live life to the fullest; awake and open wide. When we sit with the feelings of pain, we realize we can do anything, get through any situation and we become stronger with every challenging situation we move through. Look at inspiring people from history who have had difficult journeys, but they didn’t give up or hit their easy buttons: Martin Luther King Jr, Dr Wayne Dyer, Rosa parks, Maya Angelou, Gandhi, etc. All of these people experienced trauma and adversity in their childhood and throughout their lives, but they processed their painful feelings and let go in order to become the people they were meant to be.
“The bravest people I know are those who walked through the fire and come out the other side. They are those who’ve overcome, not those who’ve had nothing to overcome”
-Glennon Doyle: Love Warrior
How do we feel painful feelings without hitting our easy buttons? We take a moment to pause, feel all of our feelings fully and do not judge whatever comes up (loneliness, anger, resentment, jealously, sadness) just allow those feelings to be there. Notice them, feel them, let them be as they are, don’t try to change them and then gently with acceptance let go. Eventually you will feel relief once the feeling has been fully processed. Then we realize, “I can do this! I survived!”. It took me three long painful years to recognize and give up my easy buttons and to fully surrender and let go (and I still work on this daily). Lying on my bedroom floor, feeling loneliness, heartbreak, despair, and anger was not easy, but now that I have done it I know I can survive it. Just remember: life only gives you what you can handle. You can do this!
“Maybe instead of slamming the door on pain, I need to throw open the door wide and say, Come in. Sit down with me. And don’t leave until you’ve taught me what I need to know.”
-Glennon Doyle: Love Warrior
Life is not going to be 100% easy and pain free all the time. And we wouldn’t want it to be because then we would never change, grow and learn. It’s in the hard times that we realize who we are, what we are made of, how strong we are and what we are truly capable of. Instead of wishing you a pain free “easy” life, I wish you the bravery and courage to go through the dark painful moments and come out on the other side stronger and more resilient than ever before. Because you, my darling soul, are a warrior. The strength you need lies within.
So run towards the pain. Run towards the fear. Have courage and tell life to “BRING IT ON!!” The pain is what sets you free, you were born for this.
Quotes
“So even if the hot loneliness is there, and for 1.6 seconds we sit with that restlessness when yesterday we couldn't sit for even one, that’s the journey of the warrior.”
-Pema Chodron: When Things Fall Apart
“Pain is the universes way of demanding that you continue to learn. The more pain you can tolerate, the more you can learn. Once you look at life this way, you wont ask for pain to stop - because its really asking for your education to stop.”
-Phil Stutz & Barry Micheles: The Tools
References
If you are going through a hard time I recommend reading the book Love Warrior by Glennon Doyle. That is where the concept of the easy button came from.
Other good books: When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron, The Tools by Phil Stutz & Barry Micheles, and Letting Go by David R Hawkins