SUFFERING, GROWTH, WISDOM

We most often use the common term "growing pains" when we are talking about youthful bodies stretching and growing beyond what feels comfortable within one's own skin. In time, the muscles, ligaments and skin cooperate and lo and behold, we become more grown up. Then before you know it, the time comes again for the same metamorphosis to happen, only now the territory that needs to grow is internal. This is called soul growth or soul evolution. Hence, what was once growing pains now become "learning pains".

Life, by its very nature, is designed to keep you growing, evolving, if you will. Every soul has a natural impulse to become so much more than one permits oneself to imagine and grow toward.  My experience as a body psychotherapist has taught me that individuals, as humanistic soulful organisms, have the capacity to respond in proportion to their measured sense of safety and security. If you feel you are standing on solid ground within yourself and in your environment, you are more capable of accepting and creating the needed changes in your life. When life feels continually tumultous and perhaps, even dangerous, then it is harder to respond wisely on your own behalf. We are reminded of the recent kidnappings in Ohio and the women who felt too trauamtized and therefore paralyzed to risk their freedom.. 

I know from my own experiences that when I have resisted my own forward movement, it was during times that I didn't feel grounded in myself. I had moved from one location to another and although my bags were upacked I was emotionally unsettled. I further complicated my life by creating distractions that took me further from myself rather than settling in. I used clever deflections and excuses such things as: higher pursuits, business projects, my children's needs, house cleaning, partying, decorating, shopping, or worse yet, helping others improve their lives! I eventually always came back to the same inevitable, restless feelings. When I was finally ready to or forced to face my own personal truths, I grew immensly.

What is most important to remember is that when your own avoidance factor catches up to you, and you will feel forced to deal that an emerging response, try not to react. Realize there is a great difference between responding and reacting and each one leads to a different outcome. Reacting is connected to quick impulsive behavior and can cause damage and regret. It generally is harsher, more adolescent, desperate and sourced in a deeper fear that never got resolved from the past.

Learn to take a deep breathe and ride the wave of your pain, anger, loss and fear all the way through. If you do, you will learn what you still need to address within yourself while everything else falls to the side. You will realize that the pain you have carried and avoided has been waiting for your attention so you can heal. Your growing pains are your learning pains. They exist to serve you in growth that wouls otherwise not occur. Carl G. Jung, mystic, psychiatrist, father of archetypal psychology reminded us , "There is no coming to consciousness without pain." Suffering is a part of your personal path toward wisdom. It is through addressing your suffering, as Buddha reminded us, that you become free from the illusory fears that keep you held and bound in captivity. Once your soul can breathe and stretch again, you discover that you are comfortable being in your own skin. 

Blessings