“If we do not embrace our pain, we will try to avoid it. To avoid our pain we often try to replace it with something else. And then we feel nothing. Embrace your pain.”
Too often we avoid our pain by running from it, thinking to avoid it we will remove it from our lives. Then of course, reality comes crashing back into our lives and bites us in the ass. Reality always comes for us like a thief in the night.
When I drank to escape my pain, I was only replacing what I was feeling with the numbness of alcohol. When I raced sportbikes I was only replacing my pain with the incredible rush I felt. When I would train with my firearm until my hands went numb, I was doing it because of the things I experienced.
When I was overseas and truly alive I felt no pain. I had little to no fear because I always had my weapon. No one was allowed to hurt me anymore and I had the ultimate way to keep it from ever happening again. I avoided the pain I felt because I was permitted to take life if that was how the situation evolved.
Today I face the emotions of the pain I feel as I am reminded everyday of the mirror image of myself growing into the young boy that was so incredibly lost for so long. Sometimes I choke back tears of terror and of joy as I see the amazing life my wife and I have provided our son. I realize how hard my own mother worked despite the wrecking balls that constantly came crashing into her own life. I realize my mother was an imperfect human and she tried.
Today I realize when I feel these things in my mind I need to transfer those feelings to my body. I need to feel true reality everyday the way it is with the people around me and realize just how amazing this world and the people in it are when we are connected with that reality. That is one of the first goals I attempt every morning. Some days I do better than others.
Lets embrace our pain, Trainwrecks. We can’t avoid it so we have to take it on. The only way out is through.
المخرج الوحيد من غمار هو خوضها
You’re Welcome. Internet.
