Pain

When you feel pain, don’t run from it. Do not avoid it or escape it. A lot of people do and I used to. Pain hurts. It sucks, and some pain changes you. It makes you resentful, cunning, vengeful, dark inside.

Pain can only be overcome when you face it. It’s not easy because no one wants to expose themselves to what hurts. There’s even some pain today that I still don’t face. But the only way to overcome pain, or any type for that matter, is to face it.

Don’t go out with friends when you feel it.

Don’t binge-watch movies or TV shows, ignoring it.

Don’t make your spouse or partner the escape way to get out of all that pain.

Don’t drink or smoke it away.

Pain you run away from and don’t face, simply comes back to you and stays until you face it. Head on.

It’s a cruel fact of life.

So – deal with it!

Go somewhere you can be alone and just let it be with you – as painful as it is. Let it shred you to pieces inside as it does.

Face it!

At some point later, you’ll get to a lull – a sort of place where it can’t really get worse than this, you’re already there. That’s rock bottom.

And once you’re there, you can transmute whatever painful emotion you’re feeling.

Go read a book.

Go tend to your garden.

Workout.

Write.

Draw.

Create.

Take on a new course.

Learn a new skill.

Do some research about your flaws and psychology.

And keep doing whatever it is that’s productive.

Don’t look at the time, don’t look at the watch. Just do it anyway. If you finished one session, go for another.

Just do it!

After a while, you’ll forget what brought you into pain in the first place.

Feel the pain first, then when you’re used to it, be productive – and stay that way until the pain is gone.

That is how you beat pain and grow.

Now that I’ve given a positive life lesson, I’ll get ready for life giving me another ass-kicking at some point. It always happens that way.

So what. You only live once.

Die empty.

Soldier on!

You got this.