The Pain of Life

Adapted from the mama birth blog titled Painful Birth-Loving it, Embracing It, Accepting It

I live at the top of a hill.  I try to stay in shape by running.  The easy part is getting DOWN the hill.  But, inevitably I must come home at some point and that includes going UP hill.

Sometimes, since I am tired and at the end of my run, I try to avoid the hills.  I see one coming up and so I turn before I get there.  But then I find something awful.  ANOTHER hill.  Then I try to turn again.  Surely, I can get home without going up a hill, right?

As it turns out, NO.  I live on the top of a hill and to get back home I must go up a hill.  Trying to avoid the hill is simply going to drag out the inevitable and possibly get me lost.

When it comes to life, I think all of us have done ourselves a disservice.  We have told ourselves over and over that life doesn't have to be painful.  It can be painless and easy.  You don't have to sweat!  You don't have to suffer!

Different groups go about this in different ways.  Medical doctors give you drugs and Chiropractors often feel adjustments should solve your pain.

I am not advocating that we all should expect life to be excruciating and scared to death about the prospect. 

But over and over again I see people who are actually ashamed to admit that they feel pain of all types in life.  It is like it is some kind of badge of honor to have a pain free life.

Guess what.  I think that is lame.  I think we have sold people a bill of goods and we are not adequately preparing them for the realities of life when we act like they can have a life without pain if they just "do everything right" and "have their mind free of fear", etc.

There.  I just said it.  I think the idea of pain free life is a little lame.

Let me explain. 

The most beautiful thing about life to me is what it can teach us about real life.  I think that is why the journey of life is so intense and beautiful and multifaceted- it is teaching us lessons that will serve us for the rest of our life if we listen and learn from them.

That lesson is this-  Real joy requires some pain.

I don't know how much of my life I have spent avoiding the hard stuff, but I can tell you that it was far to much.

Too many a year was spent waiting for things to get easier and hoping that THEN I could really enjoy life.  I missed out on enjoying the hard times and learning from them.  I dragged out the misery and I didn't appreciate what I could have been learning at the time.  I told the universe to keep trying like mad to teach me the same lesson, over and over again, because I didn't want to learn it.

I don't believe life is supposed to be easy.  I don't believe it is supposed to be pain free.  

What should you love, embrace, and accept about the pain of life?

Embrace that it is teaching you that you are strong and the only way that it can teach you this is by having you go through something that you didn't think you were capable of.

Love that when it is over you will feel joy and satisfaction.

Embrace that life makes you a person that knows they are capable and willing to do what they must.

Accept that it is something you must, no- are BLESSED- to go through.  It isn't a punishment, it is a journey and it is great one.

When we try to avoid the hills of life we short change ourselves, we fight what was meant to be and make longer a journey that, though it includes difficulties, gives us an amazing ride throughout.  When we fight this, avoid this, or are surprised by this it simply makes that hill harder to climb.

We need to stop avoiding the pain of life and we need to love what it teaches us, what it does for us, and what it means to us when we have gone through it.  The pain of life is your teacher, your lover and your friend.  It is not something to be feared.  It is what makes life so magnificent.