You Don't Have to Let Pain Control Your Life
Everyone has experienced pain at some point, including pain that we bring upon ourselves. In this case, the pain was probably inflicted unconsciously or, to our shame, on purpose. And while pain is inevitable, you don’t have to let pain control your life.
On the other hand, every person gives pain and past events a different level of importance based on their beliefs about what is significant. Similarly, the way we feel pain is very relative. Some people suffer greatly over something that, to others, would be no more than an inconvenience, and vice versa. What is truly human is to understand that each circumstance is worthy of respect.
Also, in either case, it is important to let go of the idea that we need pain to leave us in order to feel inner harmony. It’s true that it is difficult to face those moments in which the only remedy is to accept what has happened, but it can be achieved. And, if we can do this, we will have won.
It is okay to experience pain
We often talk about how pain is bad and how it is completely logical to want to move away when it threatens to approach. We don’t want anything negative to happen to us and ruin our emotional equilibrium, leaving us in what feels like a dark abyss. It is fair to say that, while we have the tools to overcome pain, we are never prepared for it to occur.
Nevertheless, though we dislike the idea that it is possible, we adapt to life’s blows easily. Furthermore, we have talked on various occasions about the positive effects these blows can have: teaching, learning.
“You know, one can see life as sown with difficulties to avoid, or as a vast terrain of play, offering an experience we can take with us at every corner.”
–Laurent Gounelle
The lessons we learn from experiences we live through sow the seeds of valuable fruits we can use on our journey. So, from this point of view, it is beneficial to allow ourselves to feel pain in order to learn and absorb the details of our lives to the fullest extent possible.
It is good to fail so we can better enjoy our success. It is good to cry in order to clear our view and relieve our heart. Certainly, it is beneficial to understand that there are always high points and low points in life. What’s more, it is not bad to fall into these low points if they teach us how to pick ourselves up.
If you don’t let pain control your life it won’t
When we are here, in the depth of a vast well, we feel as if the tools we need to escape are far out of reach. It is the shadow of this sensation that we get stuck on when we haven’t found a way to overcome the past.
In other words, we live in a present where this pain no longer exists, but the claws of the pain still scratch us from the past. If the state I am describing applies to us, it is because we have not left the past in the past and we need to do this. Similarly, we should remember that the past cannot return to harm us if we don’t let it.
“ But who can remember pain, once it’s over? All that remains of it is a shadow, not in the mind even, in the flesh. Pain marks you, but too deep to see. Out of sight, out of mind.”
We know that we have left this state the moment when we look back and discover that we remember the pain, but it no longer hurts or controls us. We deserve to reach this other side, pardoning others or pardoning ourselves, as the case may be.
Regain your control
Pain can temporarily control our lives, nevertheless, with patience and courage, it can be overcome and we can regain control of our own lives. You are in command: it is you at the helm, capable of guiding yourself where you want to go from here.
With our suitcase full of useful feelings, we leave behind that which no longer serves us. We have been temporarily derailed, but we are back on track and we will not allow ourselves to get lost again. And, if destiny brings us back off track, we will know how to recover.
“(. . .) Decide in what moment you lost control over your lives, because there is always a moment in which life derails.”
-Gillian Flynn