Pain is necessary, suffering is optional

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After watching Stutz on Netflix, I decided to get the book, The Tools by Phil Stutz and Barry Michels.

If you're trying to figure things out, watch the documentary on Netflix and then get the book. Stutz is a big proponent of 'embracing pain'. It's counterintuitive, but once you explore it, it makes a world of sense.

I wrote a piece a while back trying to figure out my own pain, I thought it was quite good, and thought it might be useful to you.

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I’ve been reflecting on the nature of pain over the past weeks. The shattering of the heart pain that we all feel. The one leaving us curled in the foetal position keening like a wounded animal. That one.

I’ve been there. You’ve been there. We’re going to be there lots of times still.

Our creator left us with the secret of happiness. But they knew that we had to come to it in an evolutionary fashion and not have it revealed to us instantly, otherwise we wouldn’t be able to have this human experience. And, quite frankly if it came to us in a flash, it would blow our minds.

This secret is hidden in the last place we’d think to look … in our heart. We go outside to find it … possessions, relationships and mind-altering chemicals. Happiness is hidden in plain sight, that’s why we miss it.

I have a notion that we were given a heart to be broken, shattered, torn and ripped apart. The heart is built to endure and absorb pain. Every time it is ripped apart, it opens a little more. As it opens a little more, it reveals our true essence, and the secret to our happiness.

One day, it will be fully exposed and open. And on that day, we’ll know what real happiness is. But that day is probably not now.

How do we then navigate our way through the maze of pain, suffering, desolation and disconnect we feel?

I have a semblance of an answer that works for me. But, it’s not easy, it takes a radical shift in consciousness and bucket loads of courage.

Come to a place of understanding where we see that pain as necessary. Why would the creator give us pain if it weren’t for a purpose? They way I’m understanding it … it is to open our hearts to the truth.

Sit with the pain. Don’t try and dull it with chemicals and hedonistic experiences.

Pain is the experience. So, experience it. There’s a wonderful healing to it. Every time we feel pain and heal it, our heart opens just a little more.

The more we try and run from the pain we’re feeling, the more it is going to come at us until we start getting the lesson. The more we try and protect our heart, the more it is going to be overrun by the foot soldiers of pain.

Accept the pain because every shard that cuts us, cuts away the shackles that bind us.

Let the pain free our hearts and keep them open.

You will never be given more than you can handle. No matter how hurt, shattered and desolate you feel, know that you have been given the capacity to handle it.

It’s only when we get to an open heart that the true secret of happiness is revealed to us: Love! I know that perhaps you wanted a more complicated answer to make sense of it all. Love makes sense of it all. We are created in love. We are created to love. We are created to be love. We are love.

Suffering

There’s a shadow side to pain, of course. It’s called ?????? mueanaa: suffering, hardship, misery, anguish, torment, affliction, tribulation, trauma, wretchedness and hell on earth.

Some poepol somewhere down the line told each one of us that suffering is hard-wired in us and that it is our lot to bear it. Whoever told you that is delusional. Understand that pain is necessary, suffering is optional. This story was written to enchant us, not to make us suffer. It was written out of love.

Let’s make a choice today. Let’s accept the pain, sit with it and use it to open our hearts so that we can become love. Let’s discard the mantle of suffering. We were never meant to be victims in these stories but rather victors.

Let’s be that.

I love you.

Jacques