It is only in retrospect that I recognize the incredible threshold for pain I seem to have been born with. Or at least so it seems. From this perspective in consciousness I marvel at the decades I spent living in a self-inflicted and agonizing story of diminishment and unworthiness. I literally lived inside of a just out of awareness container of self-reproach and self-loathing. Oddly enough it was so pervasive that it has given me a firm and deep knowing of the power of Grace. The fact that I still managed to have some level of happiness and success is only a God-thing. Of course there is also the issue of heavy self-medicating which is beyond the scope of this reflection.
The ability to tolerate great levels of physic pain resulted in the fact that it took longer for me to be brought to my knees than perhaps it would have without this threshold. I finally did crumble, and it was the most important day of my life. The pain finally broke me open. I deeply considered suicide but realized that it would devastate those who loved me and for me it would at a level be redundant. And so the breaking open was liberation day for me. Or it was at least the beginning of my liberation. It was the start of a great deal of inner work and spiritual devotion. I had a lot to move through and to unknot. A lot to look deeply into and a lot to reclaim as I realized they were my own issues projected out. It was far from easy. Here the expansive pain threshold served me well. But here I didn’t deaden, deny, or avoid any of it. Or at least not for very long. I was committed to going deep. It was my highest priority. And it has resulted in leading me to my greatest joy.
So as I look at the deep level of individual and collective pain being so profoundly displayed within our world and I know that it is a result of the collective pain threshold finally crumbling and caving in. I know something powerful is afoot. I know it is time for people to take back the personal power that is the God-given right of every living being. I know that just as it happened in my own life a transformation is in process. I know that the pain will give way to meaning, the suffering to greater purpose. I am lending my knowing to that which I am witnessing. I am holding a space for all of this pain. I can do that because I am on the other side of what happened for me. I am not pain free by any means. But my threshold has softened and my capacity to be what is increased. And I know deeply that pain is not an enemy. It is a doorway through which we are invited to pass into greater expressions of freedom and liberty.
I know this because freedom and liberty are where I largely live today. And so I look out from that place within me and bless the pain I see and feel as a force that is leading to a demonstration of what is seeking to be.
It’s time. The pain is telling us so.
