5 Steps To Use Your Pain Towards Growth
Unload the burdens you carry and place them under your feet as stepping stones.
We have all been there. No matter what the reasons were, we have all felt lost, beaten, not enough and too much at the same time. When things were not right, we go through each day with scepticism and unsure of what the next steps should be. We were contained. Unmoved. Disconnected. You pray for it to pass. Your silent screams are the loudest but no one is around to save you. The pain gets physical and you cannot breathe. You question ‘Why me?’. You felt like a bird gets stuck in a thorny bush and every move hurts. Time stops.
What do you do now?
There is a saying in Tibetan, ‘Tragedy should be utilized as a source of strength’. No matter what sort of difficulties, how painful experience is, if we lose our hope, that’s our real disaster.
– Dalai Lama
But what are the hopes? How do you navigate from here? When things are truly terrible, how do you move again?
It doesn't matter how long ago you felt those things. Take a breath. Count to 4. Exhale. If you still think about how you could have done better, then this article is for you.
You’ve got this. Let’s go.
A Buddhist view: Part of an experience of being human is to bear suffering
We were sold the idea of a ‘happy life’, ‘constant contentment’. We were told to ‘enjoy life’, to ‘take it in’ and to ‘turn it around’. But the truth is, we cannot directly control our emotions and most events happening to us. Being human means begetting the gifts of emotions and expressions, we feel them despite our intention. The pains of living are, sadly, not avoidable. There is no ‘happily ever after’ without some serious hiccups.
But we try.
Instinctively, we aim for happiness by turning away from pain and discomfort. We use distractions as a strategy. We burry our sorrows underneath the drinks, the one-night-stands, the over-workings. But needless to say, these strategies only work short-term and are harmful long-term.
When we run away from discomforts and bad emotions, we teach ourselves to be afraid of them. The more we enforce this relationship, the more we are terrified to feel. But we cannot run away forever–not from ourselves anyway. And when they catch us up, we are paying a much higher price on our health and overall well-being.
Emotions are our teachers. And when you refuse to take in the lessons, you will fail the tests.
But how do you use your emotions and pain in your advancement instead of letting it weigh you down?
1. Really understand your pain
Realise that the pain you are feeling is a telling sign, not a result. It is the traffic lights turning at the intersection, letting you know that you can either go on or have to stop. Pain is a sign. A call for action. A sign of the need for change. Why did it come? Where did it come from? What/who was the trigger?
The options we have available to deal with emotional pain are:
- Change our circumstances.
- Change ourselves, our perceptions and understanding of the events
- Let things be as they are, no change. We ignore the events/people.
Pain is a part of our feeling scope— from the ‘good’ ones like happiness, contentment, excitement to the ‘not so good’ ones like fear, shame, disappointment. Emotions themself are not good or bad, but we cannot pick and choose. When we reject the bad ones, we reject them all. Understand that we cannot directly control our emotions, we can only influence them, gives us some leeway to work with. Why are we feeling the way we do? What are the triggers and catalysts for those emotions?
“We are more often frightened than hurt; and we suffer more in imagination than in reality.”
— Seneca
2. Learn to work with your responses
The main word here is: Allow. Allow ourself to have bad emotions. Allow ourself to not already know how to deal with them. Step back and learn to feel your emotions, how to observe them, how we get carried away.
Commonly, we deal with difficult emotions instinctively in two ways:
- Drown in our sorrows
- Block our pain with distractions
Both are the extremes of emotion management. Being immersed in sorrows longterm will lead to depression, and blocking out pain will lead to numbness and disconnection. In this time and age of immediate gratification, it is very easy to push away the pain and turn a blind eye to our own suffering.
But if we try to control your emotions instead of managing them, we will end up frustrated with little result. We aim to understand and build a better relationship with our emotions instead of running away from them or being overwhelmed by them. We were so used to feeling certain ways, it will seem impossible to change. But don’t let your emotions manipulate you — they are not you.
Meditation works wonder on sharpening our attention and makes us more accepting of our emotions. By giving yourself 20 minutes of guided/unguided meditation every day, you will slowly transform your own emotional landscape. There are excellent meditating apps that could assist you with this process. You won’t have the results straight away, but be gentle with your self and your progress. Baby steps. Great things take time.
I would not look upon anger as something foreign to me that I have to fight… I have to deal with my anger with care, with love, with tenderness, with nonviolence.
– Thich Nhat Hanh
3. Draw a detailed roadmap
Do you have the plan?
You need a plan.
Find a way out of this dark pit does take some efforts.
Find a stable point and grab firmly onto its hook and swing yourself upward. It can be your drawing lessons, going to church, therapy–all serve as a reminder of there is more to life than this pain. Be very practical on how can you climb out of this fall. Have an improvement plan. Close your eyes and imagine, where you want to be in 6 months / 1 years / 2 years / 5 years? What are the worst-case and best-case scenarios?
Remember the time when you felt this helpless and desperate in the past and you have made it through. You have been there before and you will go through it again. What you need is a realistic and detailed plan.
In the moment of calmness and contentment, take out pieces of paper and a pen. Write down:
Your present — Who are you?
Acknowledge where you are, look deeply into your perceived flaws and strengths.
Do you know yourself?
What are you good at? What are your weaknesses? What do you enjoy doing? Do you feel the most energised in the morning or afternoon? Do you tend to lash out when criticised? Do you pull away and get cold when disapproving of your partner?
It is not about being right or wrong. It is about knowing who you are, from a lens of someone who loves you. How would your best friend describe you, as a kind person from the outside looking in? No judgments, just as is.
Your past–What got you here?
You need to make sense of what happened to you and how you got here. Go as far back as you want. You need new narratives and now it is the time you re-tell your story, your way. Be kind. Tell it in the way that it doesn’t hurt you, make your sense of things that you couldn’t understand.
You partner cheated on you — the betrayal is their burden to carry, not yours.
You failed an important exam — you have limited understanding then and you have done what you thought was the best at the time.
Life was not fair to you — you can grow with what you’ve got given.
Re-write your story and make sense of it all. Do not let the past weigh you down. Your story belongs to you and no one else. No one is here to judge you or argue with your views. If you still carry damages from past relationships, let them surface and say: ‘I have done my best with what I know then. It was what it was, I won’t let it mould me into someone I don’t want to become.’
Your future–Where are you going?
Who do you want to be? Where do you want to go?
It doesn’t matter how old you are.
Would you see yourself being more successful at work? Would you love a harmonious family? Would you see yourself travelling around the world? Would you see yourself being an inspiration for someone?
Write it down and being very honest about what you want. Not what you think you should want or what your family want. Take off all the shame and all the guilts. Emerge in the feeling of already being there and having all of it. Ask yourself — are you truly happy there? Is that where you want to be?
Then ask yourself — if you don’t have this goal, what would happen? What are the worst-case scenarios? If you just let things be the way they are, what your future will be like? Dare to bring out the images of a doomed future.
It takes a great deal of courage to ask yourself this! You will feel scared, you will want to run away. But be brave.
This is important.
Only you can do this, look and look deeply. What is the end game if you won’t change and everything stays the same. Feel the fear, feel the shame, feel the regret of wasted time. Don’t let it scare you. But know that you don’t have that much time. Dare to ask big questions. And dare to go there.
You are living as if destined to live forever. You act like mortals in all that you fear, and like immortals in all that you desire.
– Seneca
4. Show up even bruised and terrified!
Show up with every thought, every action. Steer your course. Even when you don’t feel like it, even when you are full of anxiety and doubts. Hold steadily onto your steering wheel. And show up — even crying, in pain, desperate, lost faith, hating every single moment. Even when you think it won’t make a difference.
It does!
If you made a plan of getting up at early every day to build your routine, then do it, even with big yawns.
If you said you’ll go to the gym, then even crying, start with 20 minutes session.
If you decided to cook your own meals, even if it tastes so bad, do it. You can improve the taste with time.
It matters. The only thing that matters is perseverance.
Tell yourself: I am doing this for me. My future me will thank me for this. I’m gonna stick to it no matter how hard!
The right attitude is to give yourself plenty of acknowledgement and celebrate small wins. This will feel unnatural since the negative self-talk will try to justify all your efforts. You have learned this way of thinking for years so it won’t be easy to change in a day or two. But having a positive attitude is a skill.
So is being kind and being patient. Allow yourself to show up without the harsh judgement. Wait for the seeds you plant into the soil to slowly open up, without stomping on it and checking everyday ‘are you bringing fruits yet?’
All good things take time.
Drop by drop is the water pot filled. Likewise, the wise man, gathering it little by little, fills himself with good.
– Buddha
5. Forgive. With the right attitude.
If you have lived long enough, chances are some people had hurt you deeply. We all have scars we carried for as long as we remember. And you know you should forgive them, so you have been told, but you can’t.
How can you? How can you forgive such horrendous and tedious acts?
What if I told you, what you have been told about forgiveness was wrong.
Why? Because forgiveness is a kind act you bestow upon yourself, not other people.
Forgiveness doesn’t mean: I forgive you, I will try to forget and accept what you did and we start again. I am giving you another chance to be a better person.
This is not how it works.
(If this is how you think about forgiveness, you have done more harm than good to yourself. )
Forgiveness is not a gift to the other person, it is yours to you.
What forgiveness truly means:
What you did was terrible and I don’t approve of it. That was entirely on you. It is not a reflection of myself or my values. I don’t want to be entangled by this so I’m gonna excuse myself. But you are allowed to be forgiven and start again. Independent of me. Your presence is causing me pain and irritation so I won’t be around you as often, or at all.
Yes, you have the right to do that!
See the shift?
You allow them to be forgiven! You are not the one who provides forgiveness! You simply allow them to receive one, despite the fact they deserve it or not. You don’t have to be the judge and the executioner, the weight is off your shoulders. It doesn’t mean that you agree or condone their behaviours. It means that you allow them to be forgiven for what they did and work towards improvement. But you won’t put your life or happiness on the line for a bet. You take care of yourself.
That’s it, it is that simple. Unknot the entangled strings that are tying you up.
It might not happen right now but it will. Be willing to forgive, but remove things and people that are not aligned with your plans! If you are not going the same direction, chances are they won’t stay for long.
But you gotta get to where you are going!
Forgiveness is a virtue of the brave.
– Gandhi
Our shame
We need to forgive ourselves, too. For all the wrong things that we did, for all the ‘should have known better’ and ‘maybe no one knows’. We acknowledge our shortcomings and are committed to being better than who we were yesterday. We are work in progress and constantly course-correcting. And that is ok.
Chin up and see through this: your heart is trembling, waves of griefs keep coming. You are almost drowning in the ocean of hurt. You don’t know if you are strong enough to get through this – isolated and all by your self. How are you gonna move on? Can you?
You can. And you will.
Our mistake is to think that we have to feel good to do something good. It is not always the case. Calm yourself, take a breath, let the waves wash over you, hold on and wait for the storm to pass. We will not only survive many storms to come but we will come out a better storm-cruiser each time. This is the blueprint:
