The Price of Growth
There is a price to pay for healing and transformation - and that price is our temporary comfort.
Everything that makes us stronger is spurred from a type of destruction, a tearing apart of old ways and beliefs. Maybe we embark on the path of transformation through self-destruction, our soul's way of bringing us to the truth. Or maybe the destruction arrives through an outside person or situation that is out of our control. In whatever form, there will be no growth without an undoing that causes us difficulty and pain.
As much as I dislike feelings of fear, discomfort, pain, heartache, sadness, loss, and inner turmoil, I have slowly learned to step back when these emotions present themselves and ask myself what they are here to teach me. It's not easy - I resist and roll my eyes and discard my spiritual practice all the time. It's easy to talk about peace and surrender when you feel good and when life is going well.
When the shit hits the fan, like it did for me last week, we start to doubt.
My 9-year-old son left the water running full blast in the upstairs bathroom and it overflowed through all three floors of the house - straight through the old bar, that holds dark memories of my addicted past. Straight through my yoga studio, that holds hope and light for my future.
After turning off the water, the spewing source of the problem, I came downstairs and stood in the bar. The ceiling rained down on me and puddled at my feet, like the cleansing aftermath of a recently passed storm. Then I went to my yoga studio, and watched in awe as the water continued to spill through the house, down to the lowest point, which was my mat, my blocks, and my journal that lay wide open in the center of the room. The pages swirled with colorful ink from my pens, and the patterns slid right off the page and onto the floor. The new shapes held no remnant of the letters and words that used to exist; the water had transformed them, and when I rescued the book from the continuing downpour, the pages cringed and buckled under the heavy dampness that now took over.
My reaction to the flood was more awe than anger - so much damage in so little time. Minutes before everything in the house was quiet and fine. Something about this crisis felt cleansing and meaningful, even though it would be expensive and annoying to repair all the damage.
Often when we are unhinged, it might not be the actual circumstance - the circumstance might be a trigger, and therefore a lesson, to something more meaningful regarding our personal growth. Physical crises can be fixed, with assessment, proper tools and manual labor. Emotional crises require the same type of technique, an awareness, a tearing apart, and a putting back together. We feel a lot of pain and discomfort through the process. But we come out restored.
Your inner turmoil is leading you somewhere great.
Your pain is pointing you straight towards the fire you are meant to walk through. We want to avoid pain, patch holes, and paint over all the unsightly cracks and gouges of our life. But the only way to be rid of the pain, is to move through it.
Your pain is your answer. Lean in instead of out. Know that you will emerge a much stronger version of yourself and let this be your motivation to keep going despite discomfort. My house overflowing in the span of 15 minutes has churned up much debris from my past. In the old days I would have headed straight to the bottle for relief. What a gift to know I can remain in my pain and that it actually passes through. Yours will too.
Photography by Kimberly Lempart