The Only Way Out Is Through: To Overcome Pain You Must Face It Head-On

I see you, you who shies away from hard topics, who trembles secretly in your room, fighting bravely against the pain, doing everything you can to keep moving without thinking about that. one. thing.

Your luggage loaded tall on your back, your fingers grasped tightly around each strap, unwilling to let each go.

You’ve been hurt, so deeply, and to face that hurt might sound a lot like too much for your heart to take?

You live in a culture where temporary relief is the most normal fix. You push your problems down deeper through ignoring, forget about your problems through drinking,  or avoid  people who will help you grow.

And yet every morning you wake up with the same problems, in the same spot, with the same hurt.

You will find you’ll carry around your pain whether you know it or not. But the weight of unaddressed hurts and issues can keep you stumbling through the same old patterns instead of learning to run free.

Oh friend, pushing down hinders, not helps. And pushing through heals, instead of prolongs the hurt.

But a wound that remains with only a bandaid over it will soon become infected every time it’s touched, until it’s properly taken care of.

We can’t be afraid to feel our pain.

Because in retrospect, we’re actually feeling more pain carrying our heavy luggage year after year.

Taking proper care of our wounds involves stinging and burning, but this cleansing takes us faster to healing.

That tunnel in front of you…daunting doesn’t seem to cover it, I know too well.

Addressing your pain sounds like the most painful action, and it’s much easier to walk away…but don’t mistake easy for worthwhile…

We must walk through instead of walking away, because walking through is really walking towards the light. The dark tunnel won’t ever disappear if we are not willing to power through it.

But the thing that all thrivers will tell you, is that they buckled down and worked hard while they were still surviving.

It’s the hard and the hurt that drives us away, but those are the very things that will also drive us towards success.

Oftentimes the healthiest thing for us to do is to sit in our pain for a while, and become aware of every aspect of it—the sources, the effects, the feelings—because this will help us learn most about who we are at our core when our world is shaken, Who we are trusting in, and what we are placing our identity in. Those who use avoidance when it comes to their deepest pains are the ones who are unknowingly avoiding the best opportunity to grow and develop.

It is from our darkest times that we develop into the brightest beings.

This is not a path towards no pain, but it can definitely be a path towards understanding and less pain. The load of baggage we carry, once unpacked, can take on the much smaller size of a knapsack, and then our hands are free to fill our lives with the things we want, rather than hold on to the things we don’t want.

Don’t fear the feeling of your pain. It is hard and it is so heavy but it is the most necessary thing we can do.

And the more there is, the more it can be used to help others. Deep pain often leads to deep connection with others once we’ve walked out the other side.

So sit for a little, feel your pain, then get up and walk through it.

Take time to unload each aspect of your baggage. Walk through your tunnel. The light is waiting, and I promise it will get brighter.