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The Advantages of Staying in the Pain
We go through times where we are called to change. There is a death, an acute or prolonged sickness or an accident. These are the times where we are shown that we are more than what we have formerly known ourselves to be. We see that we are more capable, resilient, or even more loved than we had imagined. And we are changed. There is no way to go back.
In my work, I teach a lot about integration, or rather, re-integration. So often, in our lives, we shy away from hard things, hard places, and hard experiences. It seems much easier to find a place that we are safe, without negativity, and without the constant challenge to our decisions and commitments to ourselves. We search for and find a place we can breathe, be ourselves, and most importantly, be safe from conflict.
The process of becoming truly authentic comes at a price. The journey begins when we begin to see that the life we have been living might not be of our own choosing and we start to make changes. These changes are often met with some kind of resistance from the outside. People who have loved us, have supported us, and depended on us can become confused, angry, and fearful.
Fear translates in real life to aggression or recession. People might start to question us, making false assumptions about who we are, our intentions, and our trajectories. They will come to us…
