Janis and I had a beautiful long conversation about life and pain and how you sometimes just want somebody or something to come and fix the problem for you and take your pain away. If only the painkiller will take away my physical pain so I can get back to living my life. If only someone would make me feel better when I am emotional. If someone would just save me and solve all my problems…
Numbing, supressing, distracting ourselves in all sort of forms is often our way to face pain and suffering.
Our society teaches us that pain and suffering is something to avoid at all cost, that it is the unneccesary part of life. What if we get it all wrong? If you look at life every evolution, birth, renewal or change happened because of pain and suffering. Studies show that if you help a butterfly free itself out of its cocoon it will die and not fly and thrive. I dont know how a butterfly feels but I imagine it to be a rather drastic process to change your whole being while being tucked into a cocoon for weeks on end until you set yourself free by biting the cocoon and then you can fly. And if someone takes it from you to free yourself you are unable to live. What if we do the same to ourselves when we try to avoid suffering and pain?
What if we actually prevent ourselves from being able to “fly” by avoiding to let suffering and pain change us, teach us and evolve us? Growth
(even physically) is always painful! Why would emotional, spiritual growth be different?
Staying in the cocoon and evolving is hard. I can not imagine anything more painful then going through birth (metaphorical and also not 😉 ) but oh the wonder of a new life it brings into this world!! Isn´t that what this life should all be about – life giving?