Ouch!
Why does it have to hurt? This is an ancient question for human beings. “It” is anything that changes us, forces us to grow, forces us to grow up. Relationships. Loss. Change. Connecting with another person. Separating from another person. Connecting with yourself. So many of the people I work with are asking this question. They don’t always ask me… most of the time they’re asking themselves, or the Universe, or God. And there never seems to be a good answer!
Staying with someone and working through your problems - this is painful, but it helps you gain new strength as a person.
Staying with yourself and working through your problems - not self-medicating or avoiding them, and not distracting yourself with endless activities, but paying attention to yourself with silence, stillness, journaling, exercise, and breathing… people usually avoid this because it can be painful and stressful to get closer to yourself. You might want more from yourself, or your life, or others… and that might mean more loss, more change. Ouch!
I walk this path myself, and in my work I walk alongside others who are sometimes doing it for the first time. The poet Rumi can help us, I think. Here’s one of his writings, entitled “Sky-Circles”–
The way of love is not
a subtle argument.
The door there
is devastation.
Birds make great sky-circles
of their freedom.
How do they learn that?
They fall, and falling,
they are given wings.
