Embracing the pain. Why is it that we are afraid to embrace the pain? Why do we move away from the pain, and as a by-product, the very things we seek sometimes? Conditioning. Plain and simple, but let’s explore the phenomenon more so we can bust yet another barrier and push forwards towards the futures we know we are here to create.
We resist the pain because we have been taught that pain is undesirable. We have been taught to shrink away from pain, and this can be seen on many levels. At its most obvious we take painkillers to numb a headache or anti-inflammatories to ease muscular discomfort, but on a deeper more subtle level, we also numb emotions by distracting ourselves with social media, Netflix, alcohol, and drama to name but a few.
However, the pain, and in fact all feelings, are just messengers. What is the headache telling us? What is the uncomfortable feeling telling us? Now, you and I, we are not normal, we are mavericks, so we don’t really shrink away from the pain when we are making waves in the world and following our truths, but we still attempt to side step pain on smaller levels. The message that I want you to hear today, is that diving into all pain (and other feelings) can ramp up your success, it can allow you to tap in on a whole new level to get your message out, to change the world, to affect change, so much faster. And let’s face it the world needs that change, now!
What if pain was actually a good thing? No really, think about this, birthing a child into the world requires pain, winning a marathon requires pain, scaling a business requires pain, being a maverick can bring pain. Pain is not the enemy, pain is simply an indication that you are doing something your body is not used to.
And you my darling, as a maverick know only too well. You are here to do something that no one is used to or ready for, but you do it anyway. Mavericks can handle a shed load more pain than others and that is why they always get the outcomes they seek if they are committed to them, they are simply prepared to endure, to go to lengths that others are not.
I am not saying that life has to hurt in order for you to succeed, because you and I know that getting on with doing what our souls are really here to do, when we actually ignore the ‘normal’ people and do it our way, that it gets to be easy, it flows, it takes on a life of its own. But in order to get to the place of magic maverick flow, we get to experience the pain of stepping into something new, of swimming against the tide.
The trick to feeling the pain and doing it anyway as a true maverick in their stride does, is to keep your eye on the prize. When you are carrying that baby in your womb and it hurts your back, your brain, your everything, you don’t dive into every moment of pain, you keep your mind on your life as it will be with that baby in it. When you are pounding the pavement 25 Km into your marathon you are not feeling your mountain sized blister with every strike of your sole, you are not paying attention to the burning sensation in your right thigh, you are focused on the feeling of running through that finish line.
And so it is too in your maverick doings. We get to success by simply ignoring, or even embracing, the pain of the journey while we keep our eyes, minds, hearts and souls on the difference we will make in the world we get to live in.
So today dear fellow maverick my question to you is, where have you been resisting the pain in your life and what do you choose to do differently now instead?