Growing Pains

Have you ever felt so terrible about how a relationship ended?  Maybe you find yourself agonizing over it?  You might be sitting with your thoughts thinking, “nothing that I said to this person begins to capture how I’m feeling.”  Maybe you’re feeling empathetic toward them and their circumstances and you wanted to convey that in your interaction. Maybe you wanted them to feel your love for them and believe it.  And yet, in the end, the dissolution was perceived by the other person as you being a cold, heartless, selfish human being.  Even worse is when someone is closed to even hear your post-script thoughts. 

In those instances, feeling is all that’s left.  Unless of course that’s too overwhelming in which case we reach for food or alcohol or some other vice that will aid us in distancing ourselves from the very thing that might free us.

Pain isn’t easy to feel.  It’s uncomfortable, distracting and it hurts.  While feeling pain it can feel as if we’ll never feel joyful again. Then fear starts to creep in and tell us all kinds of lies.  We start to believe the lies fear is telling us…

“I won’t be able to cope without the person.” 

“I’ve made a mistake.”

“I’m an awful person.”

And down we spiral to the point of no return.

Unless…

Instead of resisting pain in favor of pleasure (comfort, safety, acceptance) we make a decision BEFOREHAND to accept our pain in favor of freedom next time.  To make this choice, we must first reach a place where we feel tired of swinging and doubting; where we are sick to death of emotional acrobatics trying to get everyone to approve of us.  

Once we make this decision, we can then ride out pain and call fear’s bluff and with it discover that pain is temporary and love is infinite.  Once we feel this for ourselves, choosing love is the only option we can see in any given circumstance.  The more we choose love, the more we attract like-minded people.

Think about it.  I did and it’s changing my life!  

Much love,

Phoenix