“Do not run away from pain or fear. Instead, face it head-on. Look it squarely in the eye and tell it “BRING IT ON SUCKER!! IS THAT THE BEST YOU’VE GOT! I CAN TAKE MORE THAN THAT SO COME ONE! TURN IT ON TO FULL CURRENT!”
Then say, “I LOVE PAIN, IT SETS ME FREE”
Pain.
Just the word sends fear trickling down most of our spines. But we all know that at one moment or another, we all have to face it.
We run, we complain, we drag ourselves across the floor, we wail and we scream “why me?” We should not go through it, right?
“Where is this God we serve when we need him the most” we mostly ask, “Why is this happening to me?”
If you are like me, then you have heard the phrase, ‘What does not kill you makes you stronger and that everything happens for a reason.’
This is something I mostly scoff at and roll my eyes at because I was going through a tough time recently. The things mentioned above would be an understatement.
The pain I felt was so deep, it was like a blunt knife had been plunged into me, twisted 360 degrees then forced out.
My heart was bleeding to death. I mostly cried, but even that did me no justice. The pain was so real; I had never felt that kind of pain before.
Actions
And of course, I had to ask myself why it was so severe which led me to read a book called ‘The Tools’ by Phil Stutz and Barry Michels. It gave me the answers I needed and I want to share them with you today.
The words ‘what does not kill me makes me stronger’ were words coined by Friedrich Nietzsche, a daring thinker and intellectual in the 19th century as an aphorism.
Like most intellectuals, this philosopher formed it but did not apply it to his own life. He is criticized to have talked a good game, and having it end there.
As much as these words make me somewhat want to roll my eyes, they do speak the truth about adversity.
Just as a muscle goes through resistance to gain strength, so does inner character and strength, where the rubber meets the road, which is something most of us fear in reality.
A famous Austrian psychiatrist, Viktor Frankl, describes it best in his book, ‘Man’s Search for Meaning’. His authority, as I directly quote from the book did not come from his credentials.
It came from him experiencing the unthinkable. As I read through what he went through, I thought to myself, ‘who am I to complain this much?’
Purpose Of Pain
Pain builds character, pain builds inner strength, pain sets one free from the fear of pain. The typical human reaction to anything threatening is to run, to hide, to avoid, to not ever follow that path again, to complain, to give up, to shut the world out and this makes one remain stagnant.
Think of rejection by one you gave your life to, think of betrayal by someone you trusted so much, think of one failure to another and another.
Think embarrassment, think of vulnerability, and how one took advantage because of it. Also, think of bitterness because of something deeply hurtful that one did to you, think of a terminal illness or a mental illness you have to deal with.
Think of poverty, violence, starvation, drought, and other calamities, think of others hating you, for something you did not do, disability, death of a loved one and so many more. We have all been hurt in one way or another, disrespected, looked down upon, dejected, or cast away.
I personally have felt like I did not deserve it, but who does? Dr. Phil however says that these are simply opportunities to grow and we can use them as tools to turn that pain into power.
He puts it quite succinctly, ‘whatever you run from grows bigger, it owns you and it controls you, whatever you face head-on though shrinks.
The secret is to turn that pain into power for it is one secret to success that very few master.’
Unless you set yourself free from the fear of pain, you will close up and you will not accept the challenge. You will not grow and instead of it making you stronger as it was supposed to, you will shrink and your pain will OWN you, even though it was never meant to.
I send you love and light!
Love, Laughter, Peace, Joy, Prosperity, Abundance
