I took a stroll the other day through my neighbourhood and the last yellow sunlight of the day against the green mountainous horizon, with the sound of the Burchell’s coucal (vlei loerie) and the smell of Yasmin filled me with joy and peace. I was thankful, because I was thinking back of the difficult and painful times in my life that I overcame and left in the past. Those times doesn’t affect me anymore.
But while walking along the street where the children were playing and couples were jogging I stayed in contact with my emotions, so to absorb this positivity. I couldn’t help but remain aware of pain. Not glaring unhappiness, but a glimmer, as if something was hiding in the shadow, not visible, but present.
I was caught unaware of this unnecessary emotion. I have always tried to get rid of it and I have always celebrated when I overcame negative emotions and thoughts. But this time, rather than pushing it away, like I always try, I sat with this reality in my inner world and realised after a while that this is something that will probably stay.
Thinking back I realised that every ‘positive’ thing I have ever experienced has this dark reality to it. When you are in love, for example, it seems like you are in a state of pure joy. You want to see that person repeatedly. But in this lies the pain – if this emotion was perfect, you wouldn’t need more…Instead you end up in a long cycle of needing an receiving the attention that maintains this love, until it doesn’t sustain the love anymore.
Or lets take the birth of your child. Your child fills you with an enormous amount of love. Then they grow and certain things are less joyous – like changing the nappy and waking up at night to feed your baby. Or later your child starts misbehaving and you end up very angry, even resentful sometimes about this child. Or the child doesn’t end up fulfilling the dreams you had for her.
Or lets take a new video game. The new graphics and capabilities leaves you in awe at first, you get a great deal of joy. You end up playing hours, and when you cannot play, you are craving to play it. After years you have finished the game and it ends up on your played games pile.
It is as if these things fulfill us only temporarily. It is as if there is something imperfect about all our dreams. It is as if there is a shadow lurking behind our every joy. An aching pain remains as we are left unfulfilled even in the best of our joys.
The flip side is also true – if you look carefully, there is a hope in our pain. We often encounter overtly painful things. The loss of a loved one leaves us with the pain of grief. The divorce of our parents leaves us with the pain of rejection. When we don’t make the first team for hockey we are left with the pain of failure. When we made a mistake and our friends leave us, we are left with the pain of loneliness.
Just like pain is ever present in our joys, there is a joy and a hope that lingers with our pain. If you deal with your pain correctly, pain can drive you to grow. If we lose the loved one that meant something special to us, we are forced to grow the ability to replace what that person meant to us. If you lose a father who loved you unconditionally, it will remain a big painful loss, unless you learn to love yourself unconditionally and be a father to yourself. If your parents divorce, it can cripple you, unless you learn to mourn the painful loss and find stability in your own inner world, without blocking the emotions, which would inevitably lead to the pain of depression. If you can learn not to take responsibility for your parents, while sharing this painful emotions with your friends and therapists, you can grow into a very happy and balanced human being. When you don’t make the first team, the pain of failure can be the source that drives you to be the best athlete you could be by exercising more (whether you are meant to be a first team athlete or not, you will become the best version of yourself). And when you experience the pain of isolation after you have wronged someone, you will sit with that pain unless you grow into someone that can forgive yourself and make amends with your friends.
Pain is experienced when you lose something in yourself. With every loss you are forced to grow something out of yourself, to remain standing – like growing a new leg or finger, you need to grow something that wasn’t there before. You need to grow that love for yourself, ability to tolerate uncomfortable emotions, perseverance or self-forgiveness. Whether the pain is in your face, or in the shadow of your most joyous moments, it is there for a reason. Pain exists, because joy exists. Pain fuels our hope if we can take up the enormous task of keeping faith.
We like to help people take away their pain. But, we need to remember that some pain is necessary. Some pain – like someone’s grief, or someone’s depression is needed for that person to grow. To help them, we need to guide them in how they need to perceive their pain. Often patients come to get rid of pain, depression, anxiety, panic. But sometimes, these are the symptoms that guide them as to where the actual problem lies. What is needed more than medication, is the motivation to carry that pain through the healing work.
And as eluded in the beginning, after all, some pain, will remain, for good reason. It reminds us of a greater healing and fulfillment that is still beyond our current horizon.
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🚶🏼♂️