Your Pain is Teaching You: Learning from Adversity and Moving Forward

Feeling and emotions are funny things. As humans, we are unique in that we feel all sorts of things and the full spectrum of emotions. We decide and choose which ones we "like" the most and spend so much of our time trying to escape, bury or avoid feeling the ones we "don't like." 

But what if that was a mistake? What if avoiding something that, dare I say, we are "blessed" to feel was the sole reason for our pain?

Avoiding our humanity is the biggest mistake we can make.

We weren't given the full spectrum of emotions so that we can pick and choose which ones we liked the most and avoid the rest. Instead each and every single emotion or feeling is a reflection back to us our deepest beliefs and values of life. It is my belief that trying to avoid them is the cause of our pain.

To illustrate this I'd like to introduce you to a chart from Sir David R. Hawkins, M.D., Ph.D. 

Dr. Hawkins was a nationally renowned psychiatrist, physician, researcher, spiritual teacher and lecturer. 

In his chart above from his book Power Vs Force  he outlines the varying degrees of human emotions and feelings (levels) as well as a calibration of each one on a scale of 20-1000. I won't go into all of the details here on how he arrived to all of this (you can check that out in the book) but the point I'd like to illustrate is that us humans will feel the whole spectrum of emotions and with each one comes an accommodating world view, process and God view ( think of God here not in a religious sense rather source, divine, creation, cosmos, whatever you believe in. If you do.)

You can see the lowest feeling we experience is that of shame, guilt, apathy and grief. When we are in the space emotionally we tend to see the world as tragic, hopeless, miserable and even evil. On the higher end we experience peace, joy, reason and love. We tend to experience the world as perfect, complete, meaningful and benign. 

What Goes Up Must Come Down

As wonderful as it would be to live in a constant state of love, peace and joy, the law of polarity states that we need opposites to balance us out. Meaning what goes up must come down and what is down must come up. 

If we could ACCEPT this truth, then we could feel lower without judgment and expectations that we "shouldn't' feel this way. In fact, feeling these lower level emotions and feeling are very telling and enlightening for us. It is in these lower level emotions that we can re-assess the choices we are making. What's working and what's not working in our life?

For example, when I am low on sleep or not getting quality sleep my mental and emotional energy will drop. Often times into fear or desire. Fear that I can't manage the days tasks, or give what it demands of me. Fear that everything I have worked for will disappear overnight.  All because of lack of sleep.  Desire for it to be different or disappointed in the actions that brought about such poor sleep. But it is also in these same places that I get new perspective. It allows me to work through the anxiousness or fear that creeps in at these times, doing my best to do this without judgment around the process.

A common example is that we often make decisions in our diet or exercise from some of the lower level emotions and feelings. Dieting or eating "clean" is very difficult from a place of shame, guilt or grief. Going to gym from a place of apathy may seem hopeless and pointless. 

If you having trouble relating, or following along, I like to use this analogy. Imagine you have a set of your favorite glasses and whenever you put them on you see the world as joyous. Then maybe you have another set and when you put them on you see the world through courage. One pair you see the world as shame. You get to choose which lens you put on, how you see the world and what lessons each lens is trying to tell us.

We are all seeing world through the lenses in which we are looking through.

No right or wrong, just what is. The question becomes how can I go from seeing the world through the lenses of shame and guilt to that of even anger or courage (as you can see, even those two emotions or feelings are an upgrade.)

I believe it comes through asking yourself:
1. What is this feeling trying to teach me?
2. How can I use this to my benefit going forward?

This is some of the hardest work we can do as humans, but if we can allow ourselves to feel what we feel without judgment, and know that its part of the human experience then we can transmute that feeling and energy into something useful. This lesson can change our lives and means that even the feelings that bring about discomfort can still bring about a lesson to learn, and possibly a belief we can let go of about ourselves the world. 

You are the ultimate creator in your life, and you can give meaning to everything around you. 

It may be worth taking inventory on the predominate emotions and feelings that are driving your life. Ask yourself what role these are playing and why do they seem to be repeating patterns. What can you learn from them? sit with them, without judgment. 

Until next time...