All about Love, Life, Relationships

Many of us seem wired for pain – the kind that springs from non-acceptance and negative emotions like hatred, envy, resentment, bitterness, self-pity, non-forgiveness, guilt, irritation and so on.

By some bizarre logic, we’ve made pain so much a part of our identity. It’s almost like we wouldn’t be “us”, we wouldn’t be “normal” if our lives were relatively free of pain or drama. They are like badges we proudly wear on our sleeves because they speak eloquently of the many battles we’ve fought and survived.

Why do we do this to ourselves? Why are we so drawn to pain? What purpose does it serve us to wallow in our pain longer than is necessary or healthy?

Could it be the sudden outpouring of concern and the attention we get from others when we lament our painful experiences? Or could it be we welcome pain because it serves our own interests to feel helpless and powerless? For if we’re indeed helpless, we cannot be accountable for anything. And if we aren’t accountable then it’s easy to shift the blame onto others and to simply whine about our miserable lot.

Joy is a choice we make everyday. We are in charge.

On the other hand, if we accept we have the power to make ourselves joyful and to rise above our pain, this means we aren’t the victims we’ve long believed ourselves to be. To acknowledge this is to force ourselves to admit, or at the very least consider, that most of the pain in our lives may only be self-created and self-inflicted. With this admission, we’d also have to accept that our lives are the way they are because we chose them to be this way.

That’s a hard pill to swallow because that means we can and must do something. We are in charge! Therefore, we are directly responsible for our lives. So even if we aren’t in control of certain circumstances, we can choose how to react to or even change what’s happening to us. Always.

This discovery can be frightening and daunting. Deep down, we fear and shun responsibility given the work and effort it requires. It means rocking the boat and shaking the status quo and that we ourselves will have to do the rocking and shaking.

But who wants to turn his world upside down? Isn’t it much more convenient and much easier to blame others or even God for our fate than to take responsibility for it?

It is our duty to be joyful. We are not meant to live pain-filled lives.

Apparently, we’re so used to pain we have trouble dealing with joy. We don’t know how to welcome joy into our lives. And even if it’s right at our doorstep, we can’t recognize it. We hesitate to let it in, afraid there are strings attached or that it’s too good to be true.

Joy is something very rare it’s almost foreign and alien to us. But spiritual masters like Rumi, remind us, “The soul is here for its own joy”.

Author Robert Louis Stevenson also says, “There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy. By being happy we sow anonymous benefits upon the world.” And so I believe we aren’t meant to live pain-filled lives. In fact it has often been said that if you refuse to accept anything but the best from life, you very often get it.

Unfortunately, it boggles our minds that it can be that simple. But I think it’s that simple if we can have unshakable faith in a God who loves us so unconditionally that He has given us the freedom to shape our lives whatever way we want for us to be happy. If we can believe this, then our fears and pain no longer have the power to paralyze us.

Find the “bless in the mess”

Indeed, whether we have caused the pain in our lives or are simply caught in the web created by others, author Julian Sleigh points out that we only have three options:

• Ignore the pain or fear and hope it will go away;
• Try and live with it;
• Look for the gift within our fear and benefit from it.

Of the three options, only the third makes sense. Ignoring pain will not make it go away. Living with pain is something we don’t have the energy to do forever. Therefore, the only sensible thing to do is to face our fear, our pain and search deep for the gift within and the meaning behind it. In the process, we just might come face to face with joy.

Be joyful.. because it is possible

Joy cannot but reveal itself when we discover that we are far greater than our fears and that most of them are unfounded and when we realize that we are far greater than our pain and that most of it is probably self-inflicted and self-created.

Then we will finally understand what poet Wendell Berry means when he urges us, “Be joyful because it is humanly possible.” We will find that it truly is. Now, if only we had the courage to believe that and put it to the test.