Growing Can Often Be Painful

Growing Can Often Be Painful

It’s true, right?

Letting go of the person you once were can cause grief because you are dying to that person.

Then the uncertainty of not knowing the person you will become yet can take it’s turn at tormenting you. 

Let’s be honest, saying good-bye to your old self can elicit some pretty painful emotions.

  And if there is one thing that we all have in common it is this fact:  that we would prefer to avoid pain. 

Continuing my series: The UnSexy Truth, one definite UnSexy Truth is that Growth is many times painful.

But don’t despair. Pain is one of life’s great teachers.

Yes, you heard me correctly, though we may not be willing or able to accept its lessons at the time here are some benefits.

• The experience of the emotion of pain teaches you to prioritize and balance your lives. 
• It forces you to seriously examine yourself and let go of your coping mechanisms such over use of alcohol and drugs, binge eating, excessive spending, or any other addictive behavior you use to escape pain. 
• Pain can truly motivate you to build good habits. 

However, pain is private and isolating.

[Tweet “You must HEAR THIS…pain teaches but pleasure must be present also to learn the lesson.”] 

For without pleasure alongside the pain you can get stuck in martyrdom and entrenched in resistance and avoidance as you unconsciously make vows to yourself not to feel that feeling again. 

So to make the most of the lessons being given to you, pleasure must be embraced alongside the pain.

With pleasure present you will be able to be more resilience so that you can have the soul stamina to make that change you are pursuing.

Here is my SECRET to handling pain and navigating change in the midst of chaos. Try this simple Two Pronged Process and let me know your results. 

1. Be Present to the Pain: Accept the experience that you want to move away from. This action moves you away from the bulk of the suffering because it is resisting the experience that brings you true suffering.
2. Allow yourself to feel good. Even though you feel like crap and may think you don’t deserve it, do something pleasurable. Put on a song and dance to the music, sit down to paint or draw, take a walk in nature, go for a jog, whatever it is that makes you feel good, do it.

Only concentrating on pain inside you is unbalanced and traps you inside yourself. The addition of pleasure releases the trap door.

Now you have a simple process to guide you through the storm. Let me know how you implement it and what your results are.

Growth is a journey and not an easy one. As a Growth Certainty Coach, my speciality is Change. My life experiences have built in me the capacity to be VERY Resilient and able to KEEP MOVING FORWARD despite the Pain I felt and faced. I know the way to Successfully Navigate Change and I can help you do exactly that.

Just know, the Grief and Pain in saying good bye to your old self while beginning to flourish in the new self – It’s part of this exciting process of awakening.

You are in control of your destiny. No matter how bad things are, you can learn to play the game of life and win.