When Pain comes Calling
Pain strengthens you.
“Whenever you suffer pain, keep in mind that it’s nothing to be ashamed of” — Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 7.64
There are days when my sense of self is diminished. I am empty. I am angry. I am in pain — deep pain that’s impossible to rise up from. Those days, I stay in bed, stewing in my own misery.
I close my curtains, lock my door and disappear within. In these times, I hold on to what John Green said, “pain demands to be felt”.
I have never understood why people say, “things will pass”. Yes, they will. That is universal knowledge. Life is cyclical. Everyone knows that. Feel the pain, let it embrace you. Let it change you. Let it heal you.
When we fall and our knees get bloodied, it has to scab over. The pain from the scabbing — that uncomfortable itchiness, that ache every time we move and it tears at the skin a little — that pain, is how we know we are healing.
As there are no shortcuts for physical pain, there are no shortcuts for heartbreak, for emptiness, for those days when the depression slams into you at breakneck speed.
Pain shapes your perspective. It changes you, it reinforces you. Those days you want to scream and cry and disappear? Do it. Do it because it takes courage to be able to say, “this is what I need”. You are a warrior. You know what you need best. You know you. You own you.
You do you.
“Listen to me, your body is not a temple. Temples can be destroyed and desecrated. Your body is a forest — thick canopies of maple trees and sweet scented wildflowers sprouting in the underwood. You will grow back, over and over, no matter how badly you are devastated.”
― Beau Taplin
