How do you power your life? Do you respond most to pain or inspiration?
There’s no wrong answer here. There’s no judgement. Both of these options are powerful motivators that fuel action.
Pain includes both physical and emotional pain. Any sense of discomfort that gets intense enough will spur you to make changes in your life. Sometimes you might even have to hit rock bottom to really shift your perspective.
No one really likes pain. It can be draining, demoralizing, and well, painful. But you will only tolerate it to a point. Then, pain can become your ally. It can be a motivating force to make you seek out new paths and find answers to problems.
You may grit your teeth along the way and just plow through, but you will get there eventually.
Pain is unavoidable. Everyone will experience it at some point. The question is, what will you do with it? Will you let it pull you down and keep you down? Or will you ride the dragon into battle?
On the flip side is inspiration. Obviously, inspiration is the fun fuel to feed your creative engine. Instead of fighting and hacking a path to move forward, you allow inspiration to flow through you and open your path with ease and grace. When you are inspired, there is less struggle. You are connected and full of ideas. You feel uplifted, supported, and energized. You stand in the light of the divine.
From a place of inspiration, creating is easy, or at least, it’s way easier than creating from pain. It’s certainly more fun and lighthearted.
Sometimes, it’s hard to find your way back to inspiration, especially if you are in pain. Pain is a wall that grows higher and more impenetrable the further you sink into despair.
But what if you made pain your friend?
It’s a strange concept, but there’s power in accepting what is, especially when you feel like you can’t fight it anymore.
Being able to sit with pain and be with it and talk to it can help you regain your power. Ask your pain what it wants. It has a message for you. Tell it that you want to understand it. Send it love and acceptance. You might even wrap your arms around yourself and cradle your body and rock back and forth. Completely allowing space for pain can create space for healing.
Listen to the thoughts that pop into your head when you ask pain what it wants. If you don’t hear anything discernable, ask it to send you a sign. Then, watch for those signs to come.
Actively accepting your pain empowers you. By simply saying that you accept your pain, you start to respond instead of just react. You are no longer a victim.
You now have options. Now that pain is your ally, your can move forward. The messages you get from your pain will help you find a way to deal with it. And oddly, having pain as a friend will make you feel less isolated and alone. Instead of feeling exhausted all the time from fighting it, you can use that energy to consider the good things in your life. You can now gently ask, “What would it be like if I didn’t need my pain?”
Often, just asking that question will plant a seed in your psyche and open up new avenues of possibility. Follow your intuition and see what comes to you. Maybe you will find a new doctor who can help you. Maybe you will get the urge to eat better or do some new exercises. Maybe you will meet someone who has answers for you.
Anything is possible when you flip the paradigm and move into your power. Again, how do you power your life? Remember you have a choice, no matter what you are experiencing.