Punching through pain may seem antithetical to the spiritual path. I have found it essential. As a teen I was in so much pain I yearned to be devoid of all feeling. I wanted to be like the atoms in an ice cube–perfectly still. I believed that if I could freeze my feelings, l would no longer feel miserable. I could forget myself.
However, I have learned that the spiritual path to self-forgetting is not pain free. Ironically, for me at least, it has meant accepting pain, embracing it. I have had to go through pain and feel it completely rather than ask God to subsume it. In doing so, I have discovered that pain did not obliterate me, nor define me. By accepting and surrendering to it, I discovered a greater capacity to love myself and Her more deeply than when I held pain at bay. By letting go of the massive effort it took to be numb, I freed up my energies to love myself and Life more.
I had a deep love of the Divine to begin with, but as a teen I had no teacher in the spiritual journey to guide me. But my yearning for the Divine and for my Self eventually drove me to punch through pain to be with Her. That’s what my journey has been about.
It is glorious on the other side. This isn’t to say that I never feel pain. I do. But I no longer hold it at bay. As a result, I heal and recover from emotional and spiritual pain all the more quickly. Pain never destroys; not in my experience. My thoughts might try to destroy me, like an autoimmune disease, but never the pain itself. I always have Her love guiding me, and that has made all the difference in my well-being.