No one wants to go through difficulties, we do not fantasize about our lives becoming harder. We, as a people tend to believe it is best to avoid uncomfortable feelings. Many people avoid coming to therapy altogether because they know it entails working through emotions that they would rather not feel and to admit certain things that they would rather not to be true.
The truth does hurt sometimes. Does anyone really want to admit that they grew up in an abusive household? Probably not, and as a result of this pain many people spend their entire lives running from the truth. It can be the hardest thing in the world to acknowledge someone that you love dearly is dying, or that you are done with your partner, or that someone you love does not feel the same way about you, those things hurt to admit both to ourselves and to other people.
The thing is that by running from our pain we allow it to grow. Many people believe that feeling hurt emotionally makes them weak, which is not correct. We get stronger by looking at the things that need maintenance. All houses need upkeep or else they fall down in disrepair, even the most basic of tasks like taking out the garbage are essential in order to have a nice, enjoyable home to live in. People need to learn to take care of themselves like they take care of their houses. The rain will keep coming into your house until you take the time to fill the cracks in the foundation. For people this means doing things that remove negative thinking from their minds, learning to let go of other people’s negative opinions as well as the hurtful things that they do, all while healing from the past, and leaning into what is working in your life with appreciation and gratitude. Learning to love yourself is a life long journey for many of us.
Most of us will do many things to avoid facing the truth, because of how much pain facing the truth brings up. Like a baby learning to walk we fall in our attempts at trying to change. Unlike babies, many of us give up trying once we fall too many times for our liking. Not babies though, they keep on trying to walk until they get it. I have never heard of a baby giving up on learning to walk because they fell too many times. I suppose that somewhere along the way we learn that the prospect of failure isn’t worth trying; we decide that it is not worth trying if we don’t get it right the first time or two. The truth is as Mary Pickford once stated, “If you have made mistakes, even serious mistakes, there is always another chance for you. And supposing you have tried and failed again and again, you may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing we call 'failure' is not the falling down, but the staying down.”
Growth begins at the end of our comfort zones. When we first start exercising our bodies hurt as our muscles develop and become stronger. The same thing happens when we start to develop our inner self, in the beginning it is uncomfortable and some days it hurts deeply, especially after some heavy lifting. Like exercising, change and growth become easier the more we allow ourselves to feel the things we avoid feeling and to say the things that we avoid saying and do the things we avoid doing. With practice we become stronger, and over time we gain greater stamina and endurance. Little by little we become a stronger, healthier, and happier version of ourselves. With time our weakest parts become an integral part of making the whole unit stronger.
The result of working through what has been holding you back from loving yourself, and living your life fully is literally the best thing in the world. It is what Abraham Maslow called Self Actualization and it is the top of the Hierarchy of Needs, or put simply the thing we all strive to achieve. If nothing worth doing is easy, then the things worth doing will be difficult. Admitting the problem is always step one, and it is the hardest step to take. Press through the pain, on the other side of discomfort is transformation. The rain will keep pouring into your house until you fix the cracks. You need to repair the holes in your foundation to survive the storms. Just like when you were a baby you will learn how to stand on your own two feet, and before you know it you will be running around ready to conquer all sorts of new adventures. You just have to try one more time to become the person you want to be.
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