The Open Palm
Stock image from Unsplash
The Realities of Life
When I was a young child, I couldn’t wait until I was an old person (which I was sure all 40-year-olds were). I thought the years of working would be finished, and there would be financial security, a solid relationship with the person I would grow old with, and a house full of children and grandchildren. Naively, I thought that all of the trials and tribulations of life would be behind me. But as I have exceeded the doddering age of 40, I have come to see that the picture doesn’t always look the way it was envisioned in youth and that those lessons, and the pain that often accompanies them, do not stop.
I have endured many lessons in my time on this planet, and I feel as if they have only intensified these past couple of years. Not because I need more of them but rather because the culmination of my experiences up to this point has shown me that I am strong enough to keep learning and ascending. If I were in university, perhaps I would be close to defending my thesis. And maybe that thesis would be about understanding that the human condition includes much suffering.
As human beings, we have such a natural aversion to physical or emotional pain that we tend to avoid feeling it at all costs. I have seen this avoidance present itself in every form: procrastination, clutter, lying to self and others, running from healthy relationships or staying in unhealthy ones, doing self-harm, and a myriad of other ways we have of sweeping what needs to be addressed under the proverbial rug. We even wrap our children in metaphorical bubble wrap to avoid them feeling what it’s like to fall, fail, or not get their way.
Learning through Discomfort
While I am no fan of a punch in the stomach, feeling excruciating heartbreak, or the disappointment of being denied a deeply held wish, I have come to understand that the pain that will ultimately come from avoidance is far greater in the end than facing something head-on. Pain is an effective teacher because it knows how to get our attention. What can start as a gentle tap on the shoulder can quickly turn to a thump over the head if we continue to pretend we have nothing to learn. The faster we heed what the universe wants to show us, the faster we get through the discomfort.
The problem is the pain part - because it hurts like hell - so we tend to run. The mere thought of feeling pain can paralyze us and keep us stuck in our denial. It can keep us from removing the blinders that keep our thoughts and lives small and shackled to our own making.
Stock image from Unsplash
However, the defense of my thesis argues that embracing pain and the lessons it is there to teach us is the only way to see what is waiting on the other side of it. While the hardest of life’s lessons can feel like a wallop (or wallops!) from a heavyweight’s fist, beautiful alchemy happens when we have endured the discomfort of pain (dark night of the soul) and come out transformed. We find that what was once a clenched fist now relaxes and opens to a soft, outspread palm holding all the gifts the universe bestows on the brave. It is how we grow from weakling to warrior, unawakened to ascended.
A Beautiful Reward
I have come to look fondly upon the battle scars of my life lessons. They are badges of honor, reminding me that I have become a warrior who has gained knowledge and now knows her own strength. The benevolent palm of the universe has opened, and I have been given the gifts of new life, new love, new peace, and what feels like the granting of new wishes. It is a beautiful reward for being brave enough to walk through something instead of around it.
Pain still comes around every now and then when I am being asked to look at another bit of my psyche or soul. But instead of running, I pull up a chair for the old adversary for whom I now have great reverence. I will sit and listen to the next lessons it has for me, which I will learn faster and with more gratitude than ever before.
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